The Art of Insanity
by syrraki
Summary: Ginny's leading a double life, guess who stumbles upon it? Human pinball, ghost stalking, art classes,and gross misuse of cranberry juice ensues! Epilogue up!
1. Chapter 1

Hey everyone! I've been writing this for a while, sorry if it's not beta-ed well, my lovely beta has been really busy, and I didn't want to bother her with this.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plastic bag I'm standing in.

Chapter 1

The first night, it was a complete accident.

I was walking through the corridors of Hogwarts, humming "Weasley is my King," which had gotten stuck in my head so thoroughly that I was beginning to wish I'd never invented it, and doing my rounds. As a prefect, I have to do my rounds. To be perfectly honest, I think the prefect thing is a bit of a joke. Two students out of the ten in each year for each house? There's not exactly tough competition. Who else were they going to give it to? Crabbe or Goyle who can't distinguish between a mirror and a window with an evil doppelgänger on the other side? Unlikely. That's the problem with Slytherin. A little inbred. I mean, there are the few, who've managed to retain their sanity, like Pansy and Blaise. Some people think Nott's the sanest out of us. That's a joke, he's quiet outside Slytherin, but inside he potters around rubbing his hands together and muttering like a looney, about horses, really big horses. Go figure. So maybe the whole pureblood thing isn't such a great idea. After all, Snape's not a pureblood, and he's pretty cool. By cool, I mean he's ... well, he's not horrible. He's horrible to the Gryffindors, but they've had it coming, the whole red and gold thing is so gauche.

So there I was, walking through the corridors and minding my own business. As a prefect doing rounds, you basically have about an hour in which you are alone with your thoughts. I like to spend the hour productively, mentally planning out The Great American Novel that I'm always hearing about but no one ever seems to write. It's a lot harder than it sounded. It was easy to begin with, but then there were all these little problems, like why was the train on fire, how did the dormouse hold a saw and can tetanus really be used as a metaphor for reincarnation? These are the sort of questions that assail me, and cause my thoughts to wonder.

Not that I'm not paying attention, but for a school of witchcraft and wizardry, there's not really much going on at night. Yes you get the odd couple getting hot and heavy in an alcove, walk in on the odd ghost scratching something they can't and shouldn't scratch and even stumble across a first year who got caught on the tricky step on the north staircase that morning and was getting a bit tired of the whole thing by now. But there's not really much except for the mundane. Perhaps back in second year with that Chamber of Secrets business, or in third year, when everyone though Sirius Black was hidden under Professor Flickwit's toupee, but by now, anything dangerous going on is going on somewhere else. Probably very dangerously. But it makes for a boring life of prefecting. I'd skip it, but Professor Snape has this horrible way of swooping down on you while you're absent mindedly having a thumb war with Blaise Zambini, and asking why you aren't on your rounds in an icy voice. I think he thinks being a prefect teaches me something. He's the one who decided I should be a prefect, after all. Maybe I should hate him for that. I'll try giving him an evil look next potions lesson and check if he looks confused, or if he gives me a knowing smile as though to say _"ah, you figured it out, I only made you a prefect to bore you to death on rounds." _

That night, I'd only encountered two students, one was looking for their herbology text book; "please don't take points from me, I have a test tomorrow!" Which was perfectly stupid, as Herbology is a ridiculous subject. If I want mandrake sap all down my front, I will go and piss off a mandrake, I don't want it to be a mandatory part of my lesson thanks. Then I'd met Blaise, who waved jauntily at me and carried on walking, probably towards the kitchens. Regardless of the fact that he wasn't supposed to be walking around the school at night. But that's Blaise for you, couldn't care less about rules, and is strangely feminine. If he's not gay, he's definitely bi. Heck, I should know, he's tried to seduce me enough times. Okay, I admit, sometimes I let him seduce me, just a little, but hey, he's a good looking guy, and I have to practice don't I? Especially since Pansy became uptight about me practicing with her, just because she caught me checking my watch when I was supposed to be in the moment. I was totally in the moment, I was just checking my time because I had some homework to do and I don't like to end up doing it too late at night, I'll get bags under my eyes and they'd stand out horribly.

It was, as far as nights go, a pretty regular one. I had started late, and was just heading back to the Slytherin common room, the long route, so I could loudly pass Snape's office and show I was being responsible and all that, when I walked into something. An invisible something, I am not so lacking in grace that I just walk into things. But this was invisible, so I walked straight into it. Obviously I stumbled back a few paces and spent a few seconds being confused before reaching forward and finding my hand stopped by an invisible thing. Upon closer inspection, it was an invisible wall, sealing off this part of the corridor, just before it went around the corner. That was strange in itself, as the teacher's usually informed us before a corridor was sealed off. I knew this was off the regular route, so perhaps they hadn't thought it necessary, but why would they have anyway, there didn't appear to be any accidents, it wasn't near a staircase, there were no crumbling walls, it all looked fine. Well, sort off. As I looked, I realised that there was a bit of a shadow from the torchlight on the walls, it kept moving, so I had at first not seen it, but it was there. The weird thing was that I couldn't hear it. Not at all. I could hear behind me, the wind blowing past the window, a leaking tap somewhere, and one of the portraits having a natter, but past the invisible wall, nothing.

A lesser man might have been confused, but not I. No, it's elementary magic, I quickly realised someone had cast an imperturbable charm on this corridor. That someone was probably the one casting erratic shadows on the wall. I almost just left it, assumed it was some sort of inter-house spin the bottle and took another corridor, but my curiosity got the better of me, as it sometimes does, and I cast a nifty charm to make a door in the invisible wall, before walking straight through, the door sealing behind me

The first thing I heard was screaming.

Every muscle in my body tensed and I had a "oh crap what have I gotten into?" moment, before I realised that the screaming wasn't so much "please stop torturing me with that knife, I'll do anything," and much more "please stop tickling me with that feather, I'll do anything." The idea made me shudder. I'm not a tickling kind of person.

Tentatively, I poked my head around the corner to see exactly who was making the noise, and why she was there (it was most definitely human and female.) I don't think shock is a good enough word. You see, this was my first meeting of Virginia Weasley, I hadn't yet begun to grasp the insanity of her soul, the way that she acted upon half formed ideas and basically the way that she was completely bonkers. So when I looked around the corner, to be completely honest, I just saw this red blurr speeding towards the wall. I half expected it to hit in and explode on impact, but it didn't, instead it bounced straight off, as though the wall was some sort of grey stone shaped mattress, and hit the ceiling which acted in the same way. Upon closer inspection, the blur was a girl, just curled up and shrieking with what I assumed was happiness from the expression on her face. I realised that she'd put the imperturbable up to stop people hearing her shrieking, which was a good thing too, as it sounded like a crazed banshee, or mother, when she'd drunk from the green bottle a few times too many in one evening and found the crease her dress made her hysterical. I also realised that the reason that the walls, floor and ceiling we acting like trampolines was that she must have cast an "elastancio" upon them. I frequently used the spell to make my mattress softer, but clearly she'd found another use for it, and seemed to be enjoying it. By the time I'd finished working this out, she'd lost some momentum and had uncurled on the floor, still bouncing softly, still with her eyes closed and still giggling. Then, with no warning, she jumped to her feet and made to run at the opposite wall. It was at this point that I decided to make myself known, so I stepped out from behind the corner and cleared my throat. She spun round and froze, her eyes widened comically and she lost the blush she'd gained in her exertion.

"Did you take down the imperturbable?" She demanded. It didn't occur to me to lie to her, for unknown reasons. I suppose I was in shock.

"No, I just walked through it, it's very obvious, you're lucky no one else's detected it."

"Oh yes, fate's smiled upon me all right, making you the kindly soul who- what do you mean detected?" She giggled at me, actually giggled. I resisted the urge to smooth down my hair. "You mean you walked into it? Oh that's hilarious. I wish I'd seen it!" She sighed with what I assumed was mock regret.

"I did not walk into it! I detected it with a spell!" I insisted, attempting to think on my feet. I had walked into it, and it had kind of hurt my nose, but I couldn't stand thinking that she had an image of me walking into an invisible wall.

"You walked into it, you did a spell, whatever you like. Quite bored of this, I'm going to bed. Human pinball takes it out of me. Toodles." Her change in persona was disconcerting, from hyper active to bored, and with that she waved a "finito incantantem" at the walls, ceiling and floor, put away her wand, shoved her hands into her skirt pockets and strode off around the corner, leaving me, I'm ashamed to say,with my mouth open.

It was quite a while later, when I finally finished my rounds and was brushing my teeth in the mirror that I realised it was Ginny Weasley that I'd walked in on playing human pinball in the middle of the night. I didn't know what was stranger, the fact that she'd been doing it, or the fact that she had acted as though it was completely normal.

REVIEW DAMN YOU.


	2. Chapter 2

Hey everyone, thanks for the reviews! SORRY about the Zambini thing. Lots of you mentioned the Virginia thing, basically, I much prefer it to Ginervra, which..I don't like, but will no go into why I don't like it, for fear of offending anyone who has a mother called Ginevra. Thanks again!

Chapter 2

The next time I saw Ginny was about a week later. It might surprise people to know that I knew she was called Ginny, and didn't just refer to her as "Weasley's younger sister" or "founder of the Harry Potter fanclub, but I'm rather surprising. I am actually very perceptive. That and her brother likes to yell her name down the corridors at a level of decibels that would cause an old lady living in Argentina to go deaf. I bet loads of old ladies on Argentina have gone deaf because his voice has burst their ear drums all the way from over here, and they just blame in on age. Poor dears. Except I don't really like old ladies, they always try and pat my head which is strange, especially if I don't know them, and am taller than them, which is usually the case.

The fact was, I did know her, but didn't know anything about her. (Except that she laughed too much and was quite keen on human pinball.) I'd been quite curious the first night, but I hadn't been able to catch up with her after she walked away, she probably disappeared behind a tapestry or something, so I didn't know why she'd been there. I thought I might find her the next night, so I intentionally took the same route, but she'd evidently relocated, or maybe that was a one off, after all, I'd never seen her there before. Hogwarts was a large place, and if someone didn't want to be found, then they wouldn't be. Eventually, I dismissed the incident from my mind and attempted to forget it, which was surprisingly easier than I'd have expected. I suppose the whole thing was so surreal it'd felt like a dream. I did keep getting distracted every time I thought I saw a flash of red hair, but more often than not, it was her brother. Strangely enough, I hardly caught sight of Ginny for the entire week which was weird, because you'd have thought someone who laughed as loudly as her would be easy to find. She must have been keeping a low profile or something, perhaps she thought I had spread about her nighttime wanderings. I _had_ mentioned it to Blaise, but he'd just asked me if I'd been drinking from the green bottle.

Truth be told, I hadn't really seen the point of telling anyone else. I had nothing against Ginny, except that she was a Weasley and therefore common. Except she wasn't really common. I wouldn't call throwing yourself against magically elasticated walls common. But my point is that the most I could do was cause embarrassment on her part and confusion throughout the school. It wasn't like I'd caught her making out with Longbottom, this was just too weird.

So I was on my way to see Snape. It was lunchtime, but I wasn't eating in the Great Hall as usual, with everyone else, I was going to drop by the potions classroom to see if I could have some of what he was having. The reason for this was that today they were serving pumpkin pasties. I happen to be allergic to pumpkins. I know, it's tragic, what with me being a wizard. It's not even in the Malfoy family genes, so Merlin knows where I got it from. The thing with the magical world, is you'd think they'd try and get as far away from Muggle prejudices as possible, by not painting their faces green and wearing pointy hats. Well they don't paint their faces green, but they do wear pointy hats, and they also overuse pumpkins. There are pumpkin pasties, pumpkin flavours in absolutely everything, sugar pumpkins, chewy pumpkins and the list goes on. Due to my allergy, I stay well away. If I eat anything with the smallest amount of pumpkin in my tongue swells up and blocks my airway. Obviously that's not much of a problem with the magical remedies there are about, but that's no reason to eat a load of pumpkin.

I could have, of course, simply gone to find a house elf and asked them for some food, but ever since Dobby had moved into the kitchens the other house elves weren't so keen on me. I don't know what he told them, I wasn't mean to him. Well maybe a few times I was, but not horribly, I may have made fun of his nose a little when I was younger, but what can you expect? All seven year olds are terrors. And that time I set his ears on fire, well how I was supposed to know that curtains are flammable? I nearly set my own ears on fire too not to mention pretty much reducing the guest bedroom to ashes before my parents arrived on the scene and put it out. Mother drank quite a bit from the green bottle after that. Whatever he told them, they aren't nearly as co-operative as they used to be. I also think that Weasley is emptying their supplies even though he eats like a hippogryph at meal times.

I often go to see Snape at lunchtimes. And in free periods. Or at the end of the day. It's not that I really like him or anything, but the Slytherin common room can get a bit dull, because we're all too haughty to do anything the Gryffindors do, and since they are all so bloody active, it means we don't have that much we can do. Snape's pretty cool, I always try to get him drunk so that he'll tell me stories about when he was at school. I'm fairly sure he had a thing with my mother, and maybe Bellatrix too. When I managed to get four shots of firewhiskey down his throat and then asked him about his relationships at Hogwarts, all he would say was that he'd loved her (whoever her was) red hair. I figure he was talking about Bella at that point, seeing as she seems the type to dye her hair a lot. I can't think of anyone else that I know was at school with them with red hair. It should probably freak me out, knowing about Snape's romantic life, but it's just amazing to know that someone who didn't exactly win the genetic lottery managed to get so much action. I think he's secretly an animal. The problem is he's really secretive, as to be expected, and apart from the red hair comment, he hardly lets anything slip.

I wasn't planning on getting him drunk today of course, it was lunchtime, he never drinks before nightfall, he says it's crass. He thinks getting drunk at all is crass, and was pretty mad at me that time I persuaded him to drink four shots, but he's a bit of a lightweight, and forgets most of what happens after he's had a few, which works out well for me, as he's never mentioned the hair thing again.

As I made my way there, heading down the school, towards the dungeons, I hoped he had cooked something good. He's fairly good at fine cuisine, although his love of caviare and creativity concerning meals including caviare is worrying. The caviare torte was never supposed to be invented, ditto for the bread, butter and caviare pudding.

The corridors were mainly empty, everyone else being in lunch, including most of the teachers. Not Snape who didn't eat at the high table if he could help it, obviously, otherwise I wouldn't have been going to see him would I? It was a quiet kind of day, no one walking around, even the portraits were having a midday snooze, which was why I was quite startled when I heard a quiet giggle coming from a corridor to my left.

It was the same hysterical giggle I'd heard from Ginny, if a little muffled. I weighed up my options. I could go and see what she was laughing at, or I could go to see Snape. Or I could do both, seeing as Snape didn't really know I was coming, so couldn't chastise me for being late.

Curiosity getting the better of me, I quietly made my way down the corridor in the direction of the giggling, which I could now hear better. It sounded as though she was trying very hard, and failing to not laugh.

Finally, I rounded the corner and found her, Ginny, standing in front of a portrait of a man sitting on a bench. The man was actually asleep, so at first I wasn't sure what she was doing, until I noticed the paintbrush in her hand and the marking on the painting.

She was painting a moustache onto the portrait. And apparently finding it hillarious, if the little giggles she was emitting were any indication. The reason she was trying to muffle them was also apparent, as every time she let out a particularly loud laugh, the man in the portrait would shift slightly, murmur something, and then drift back to sleep. Looking along the corridor, I saw that she had graffitied three other portraits; painting wings on a horse, whiskers on an opera singer and turning a Labrador into a dalmatian.

"What are you doing?" I drawled, although it was fairly clear. I wanted to see how she would explain herself. To my delight, she spun around and dropped her paintbrush onto the floor, where it spattered black paint onto the stone.

"Oh, it's you," she said, fixing me with an annoyed look before picking up her brush and tutting at the spilt paint. I was nonplussed. It was as though she'd been expecting me.

"What do you mean it's me?" I asked, hoping the question sounded a bit better than it did in my head.

"Just what I said," she replied, turning back to her painting and enlarging the moustache a little, it looked far too thin.

"Is this what you do? Graffiti paintings while the occupants are asleep? Badly, might I add."

"Could you keep it down please," she muttered, "unless you want this gentleman to wake up and find you standing there with paint on your hands."

I glanced down at my hands, they were pale as ever, no trace of black paint.

"There isn't any paint on my hands," I said haughtily, displaying my hands to demonstrate. As soon as I did, she flicked her paintbrush and a black blob landed in my left palm.

"Hey!" I cried, stopping when the painting stirred and Ginny gave me a pointed look. "Hey," I said again, but quieter. "What'd you do that for?" I attempted to sound annoyed, instead of bewildered.

"You think I paint badly?" She asked, instead of answering my question, nibbling the end of the paintbrush.

"Well you don't paint well. The moustache is all wrong. The whiskers were alright," I said. "You seem to be competent at drawing straight lines, it's just the rest of it that poses a problem."

She flashed me a challenging look. What was with this girl and looks? Her face was more expressive than anything she said.

"You think you can do better?"

"I know I can."

She held the paintbrush out to me. I stared at it.

"Well, show me then."

I gave her a look of contempt.

"As if, I've got better things to do that practice art with you."

She laughed. Why did she keep laughing at me? Why did she keep laughing so much full stop? I'd never met anyone in my life that laughed as much as she did, even when they were drunk. Not that I was sure she was entirely sober.

"My my, if you can't do it Malfoy, just say, don't make excuses to get out of it."

"I can do it fine!" I growled, snatching the paintbrush and quickly fattening up the moustache with a few stokes above and below the shaky line Ginny had painted. When I turned to return the brush, she was looking at the painting appraisingly.

"Not bad," she said. "But it's a bit easy, you already had mine to work on."

"Hah, like that helped. I could have done better without it." And to demonstrate the fact, I moved onto the next portrait, a thin woman asleep on a piano, and skilfully painted on a healthy moustache in just three strokes. I turned back to Ginny and was shocked to see an alarmed look on her face.

"It's not that bad," I began, but she stopped me.

"No you idiot, that's Violette, she's only half asleep!" She hissed, and I saw she was right, as the thin woman blinked twice and opened her eyes, looking at us suspiciously.

"I say," she began, patting her moustache. "What in Merlin's name have you done to me!?" The last part was a screech, as she started shrieking. "HOOLIGANS, ROUGUES, You've ruined me!"

At this point, Ginny grabbed my hand and whispered, "run," before dragging me after her as she ran down the corridor. Luckily most people hadn't come out of lunch yet, and the corridors were still clear, as we ran through them down one staircase, through a courtyard and finally into a deserted classroom where we both burst out laughing.

After a few minutes, we both got our breaths back and managed to stop laughing, and Ginny perched on a desk and smiled at me. Like this was completely normal. I had started to get back into the situation, and wondered if I was dreaming.

"Is this really what you do?" I asked, watching her face.

"What? Hide in deserted classrooms? Sometimes. Good thing Vi has an awful memory."

"No, I mean, do you usually wait until everyone's somewhere else and then do weird and crazy things?"

"It's better than doing them when everyone else is there, surely? They'd get in the way."

It made perfect sense, and yet wasn't at all what I'd expected her to say. I made a mental note to expect her to do the thing I least expected her to do, which would be the thing she was expected to do because I was expecting her to do things I wasn't expecting her to do. Then I stopped with the mental note, because I was just getting a tad confused.

"I mean, this, the graffiti-ing paintings and playing human pinball. Is this what you do for kicks?"

"I suppose. I like doing things that are fun."

"And running away from a portrait is fun for you?"

"Why, wasn't it for you?"

"Well yeah, but it's a bit weird. I think you're insane."

"I think you're scared."

"That's ridiculous."

"So's your face."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You just said my face was ridiculous!"

"I did not. But now you mention it.."

"What?"

"Nothing! ... In particular."

I glared at her.

"It's just your eyebrows."

I resisted the urge to hide my eyebrows with my hand.

"What's wrong with my eyebrows?"

"Nothing, they're just kind of...invisible." She giggled. Again.

"You laugh too much."

"You laugh too little. Has it ever occurred to you that I'm just having a good time?"

"You're psychotic."

"I'm leaving." She didn't say it angrily, just as though she was stating a fact, before shoving her hands in her skirt pocket and stalking off through the door.

I stood there for a second, just in shock, before running to the door and looking down the corridor. She'd already disappeared, of course.

Hope you all enjoyed that :) I love the "So's your face" comment. Which just jumped out. My favourite bit is writing the conversations.

Please do review, I got about four reviews for the first chapter, so I'd love four more! Plllleeeeease. CHEEEEEEESE. And I'll update faster if you review. What was with the cheese? Does anyone know?


	3. Chapter 3

Hey guys, aren't I great, updating three days in a row! I hpoe you are liking the story so far..although apparently only five people have read it, but still! I shall update for the five people who liked it, thanks for your reviews guys! And as a warning, I use "Virginia" again in this, sorry to all who take offence, perhaps just imagine that I've written "Ginevra" instead?

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the knee high hockey socks I'm standing in. No idea where these came from. I don't even play hockey. 

Chapter 3

After Ginny disappeared for the second time, I began to wonder how she was doing it. I'm not saying that I know the school from top to bottom, no one does, but I'd been there a whole year more than her at least, so why was she so much more familiar with it? Then again, perhaps I had at some point known about the secret corridors she was using to disappear, but due to not liking cobwebs in my hair I'd avoided them. She probably wouldn't have that problem, because she's shorter than I am. And she probably wouldn't care about getting spider webs in her hair. I personally think it's disgusting. If you don't have personal hygiene, what have you got?

Take my mother for instance, she appreciates the value of looking good. She might be a raging alcoholic with suicidal tendencies, but she always looks perfection. And her suicidal urges obviously aren't very strong. It's not all that hard to kill yourself if you're a witch. And no one can really blame her for the alcohol thing. You'd drink too, if _you_ were married to Lucius Malfoy, hair as long as any womans, enjoys terrifying young girls and insulting house elves for sport. He's not exactly a catch. Between you and me, I think she's still got a thing for Snape. She has a picture of him from the yearbook, he's glaring at the camera and trying to hide as usual, and I sometimes walk in on her looking at it.

I should probably let him know about that. Maybe he wouldn't be such a raging misery if he was getting some.

Then again, if he wasn't such a raging misery to the Gryffindors, and the Hufflepuffs, okay to all the houses except Slytherin, school wouldn't be half as fun.

I supposed that it was something to do with having about a million brothers in the school. They probably passed down tips like how to get around fast, and how to answer Professor Binns' essay on the Goblin Rebellion. The one he'd been setting for the last century. That couldn't be right though, because Weasley always got a "T" in History of Magic.

Although, I couldn't really compare Ginny to Weasley. They were different species, it was amazing to consider that they were actually related. I dimly wondered if any of Ginny's brothers were like her, then dismissed the thought. I'd never met anyone in my life like her. Everything she said, every word that came out of her mouth and everything she did surprised me. Even when I'd made my mind up not to be surprised.

And it was interesting. I had so many questions to ask her. Not that I was desperate or anything, but if the opportunity arose I was naturally curious, as anyone would be. I wanted to know what else she did besides bouncing around the corridors and graffitying portraits while they slept. Why did she do it alone? How did she get the ideas? Why did she always put her hands in her skirt pockets? And most importantly, how did she get around the school so damn fast?

Whatever it was, Ginny had sneaking around the school down to an art. I hardly ever saw her walking through the corridors on her way somewhere, which again struck me as odd, because every time we met, she seemed to be loud and giggly and generally not the kind of person that you miss.

The weirdest thing, I happened to be eating in the dining hall, luckily they weren't serving anything with pumpkin in, a few days after the portrait incident. I was glancing towards the Gryffindor table. Not looking for Ginny, per say, but just looking in general. You see, I hadn't noticed her on the table before. Either she snuck in and out very quickly, or she actually wasn't eating, which was plausible as she was very thin and sort of angular. No curves to speak of whatsoever. As I looked down the Gryffindor table, I noticed that she actually was there, sitting next to Luna Lovegood, who was without a doubt insane, so it was no surprise Ginny was so psychotic, with influences like that. They weren't talking though, they were both staring into space. Luna had a fork full of what looked like peas suspended between her open mouth and the plate, but Ginny was simply sitting and staring, I didn't even see a plate of food in front of her, no wonder she was so skinny. I was looking her general direction, wondering why no one else had noticed she wasn't eating, when she suddenly blinked and looked straight at me, giving me a sarcastic salute.

I thought about pretending I hadn't seen her, or pretending I hadn't been looking, but that didn't seem very polite, and I am not a rude man. So I gave her a tight smile and looked at my plate.

A few moments later, I glanced back up at her, to see that she was still looking at me.

_What? _I mouthed.

She smiled and raised an eyebrow.

_Not eating? _I mouthed, seeing as she wasn't going to say what she was staring at.

_Not hungry._ She answered. _Bit tired._

_Up late playing human pin ball? _ I queried, I wasn't sure she'd understand but she did and gave me a lazy grin in response. Then she wiggled her fingers at me, which I assumed meant bye, and left the table, walking to the doors.

I sat in my chair for a moment, undecided. Blaise and Pansy were getting to third base on my right, and Crabbe was inhaling mashed potatoes on my left. Well with company like this.. I left my seat and tried to walk as quickly out of the hall without drawing attention to myself.

When I reached the doors, I slipped out and ran down a little way down the torchlit hallway, before stopping and sighing as it reached a crossroad with both empty as far as I could see. It wasn't so surprising this time, that she had disappeared again.

You have to understand that I didn't go looking for Ginny. I didn't see any point. If I did go looking for her, there was a very small chance that I'd actually find her. She was small after all, and the school was a big place. For all I knew, the last two times I'd met her might have been coincidences and she spent the rest of her school life curled up in the Gryffindor Common Room, a place that I had no desire to set foot in. I had no doubts that the walls would be red and gold. It would be too vulgar for words.

After I lost her after dinner, I went back to the Slytherin Common Room and sat around looking haughty with the rest of them for a bit. Pansy gave herself a manicure. Blaise kissed Daphne Greengrass, which I thought was a little discourteous to Pansy but she didn't seem to mind. That was Pansy for you, you could be as loose as you wanted, so long as you paid attention during the moment. This included not checking the time. Theo Nott produced a toy horse he'd made out of match sticks and sat playing with it on the floor, making little "neigh" sounds. A pretty average evening as far as it goes.

It was just a little mundane.

I'm not saying I was bored. Heck, I've been doing this sort of thing for seven years now, I've got sitting and looking haughty down to a fine art. I like to think that if I did something as crass as entering a competition to see who could look the haughtiest I would win hands down without even having to get Father to bribe the judges. It just didn't seem quite as fun as it usually did. Blaise challenged me to a thumb war which I lost. This only served to demoralise me further. That's the thing about Slytherins, we're pretty haughty, we're also haughtily pretty, but we don't _do_ much. Not that I want to play exploding snap anyway, who wants a pack of cards to explode in your face? But it was dull dull dull doing nothing.

Eventually I went on my rounds, going all the way around the school twice, past the corridor that I'd seen Ginny in the first night, but there was no sign of her. The only person I saw was a Hufflepuff fourth year trapped in the tricky stair. Honestly, the kid is in his fourth year and he can't remember to jump the tricky step? What kind of moron goes to a school for four years, goes up and down those stairs practically every day, and then forgets to jump it. A complete moron, that's what kind of moron. I didn't even help him out, sometimes, lessons have to be learnt the hard way.

I ended up walking over to the potions room, which was just as well, because I hadn't gone to see him that lunchtime, after the fiasco with the portrait of the thin lady and the piano. Speaking of that, I wondered why I hadn't been called to justice yet. Knowing Dumbledore, he probably just thought it was funny.

When I went into the potions classroom, Snape was sitting there, looking as depressed as ever, staring morosely into his pensieve. Actually, he looked more depressed than usual. And that's something. I cleared my throat and he looked at me mournfully.

"Ah, Draco," he said, smiling sadly. "Sit down, sit down." He waved me over to a desk which I leaned against and waited for him to say something, as he seemed deep in thought. Just so you know, he wasn't usually like this. He normally said cutting things which would have upset me deeply had I not known he liked me really. But today, if the scotch glass was any indication, he was a little out of it. Too bad I couldn't remember any of the questions I'd wanted to ask him.

"So tell me, what have you been doing with your life recently? Still holding strong against mister Zabini's inistance?" He asked, looking at me with sad black eyes.

I mentally cursed for ever mentioning Blaise's questionable sexuality.

"Yes sir, of course sir." I lied. Well, I said. Not that I lied. I didn't lie, it was true. I'm not sure why I said I lied. Of course I had been holding strong. Okay, I lied, I hadn't been holding strong. Not like he seduced me or anything, but like I said, a guy's got to practice.

"Anything interesting on your rounds?" He asked. "You're making a good prefect, doing your rounds. I was a prefect in my day."

"Not really. The other day I ran into Virginia Weasley." I stopped abruptly. Why had I mentioned Ginny. Maybe he wouldn't pick up on it? I looked up hopefully. Damn. No such luck.

"Miss Weasley eh?" He said, with a strange gleam in his eye. "Be careful of that one. She's got red hair." Then he seemed to get a bit of a grasp on the situation. "Anyway, you should be going to bed, it's quite late, off with you then."

Poor guy, Aunt Bella has a lot to answer for. But she is crazy, so I suppose it's not really her fault.

And that's another chapter! Purrrleassse review, if you want me to keep posting these, because it's way demoralising to be getting so few reviews. I only got one for the last chapter..should I wait for longer between each chapter to give you a chance to review? Perhaps this is what I shall do. Anyway, DO REVIEW.

xx


	4. Chapter 4

Hello again :) Thank you SO MUCH to TinaMustDie and Mell8 who reviewed me this chapter. Honestly, I was getting quiet sad because you know..not a lot of reviews, and I was wondering if maybe this story was the wrong kind of story, but then I read your reviews again, and I figured, if two people are liking the story, I might as well keep writing it for them. That said, I've been cheating, because all of these chapters were already written. There's one more after this, then I'm without a paddle :)

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the rabbit slippers I'm standing in.

Chapter 4

For the next few days I made a bit of an effort to look out for Ginny. Not that I ran around looking for her like some love sick puppy, Malfoys are not love sick puppies for anyone, but I did keep my eyes peeled. Still, after that dinner I didn't see her at all, not even passing between lessons.

It was a few days later when I woke up rather earlier than I'm used to. I'm not exactly a morning person. It's just that nothing good really happens in the morning. There's breakfast, the most hated meal of the day, you tend to try and do homework that is due for the first lesson and if you're me, you drink the slop that they call coffee here at Hogwarts. Basically, in my opinion the best thing to do is stay in bed.

However, the previous day I'd received a letter from my mother who did like to write to me from time to time. We didn't have a regular correspondence, but she sent me chocolate and fudge. Sometimes she'd sent me a box of Bertie Botts Every Flavoured Beans with all the pumpkins ones taken out. Mothers are lovely like that. Anyway, she'd written to me, asking the usual questions, how was I, how was school, how was Professor Snape? It was the Professor Snape questions that always came up in the post script at the end, giving the air that she'd only just decided to put it on. Sometimes she'd scribble it out and then re-pen it. Strange woman my mother. She could match two colours at fifty yards but had issues with asking about my teachers. One of these days I _have_ to find out what he did that made her so hooked on him.

Being the dutiful son I am, and also having nothing better to do, I had written a nice reply to her, telling that I was fine, school was fine and Professor Snape was fine. I put the part about Professor Snape in the post script, then scribbled it out and wrote it again, just to be funny, but I don't really think she would have got it anyway. Doesn't really get jokes. There is one about a lion, a witch and a wardrobe that she loves to tell, but I never understood that one.

I had woken up specifically to take the letter up to the owlery and send it. Mother liked me to reply promptly. If I didn't, she was liable to owl the school and find out what they were doing to me to prevent my reply. Worse still, she could come up to school herself. Not that I'd be embarrassed, she's a wonderful woman, but even a Malfoy can do without his mother storming up to school.

After rolling out of bed (intentionally mind, I didn't just fall out) I took a quick shower and used some minty shower gel that mother had sent along with her letter. I dressed for school as usual and took the letter down, a good half hour before anyone else would wake up.

I went straight to the owlery and-. Okay, I'm lying. I didn't go straight to the owlery. I took a rather long detour around the school, going past the Gryffindor side. I didn't actually know where the Gryffindor common room was, but I went in the general direction that they go, in the hopes of seeing Ginny. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't pining or anything horrid like that. I was just interested in seeing her. She was interesting. Probably insane, but still interesting.

You see, in my general experience, women are not very interesting. They're good at picking out ensembles, writing long and elegant letters and doing their hair in complex ways. They're not particularly interesting to speak to, or spend time with. Maybe I should justify this. The two main women that had been in my life up to this point were my Mother, and Pansy. I'm not sure whether I should include Blaise, seeing as we all thought he was a girl for years, and he didn't help matters at all by hitting on anything with a pulse. I'm not including Blaise, I'll leave it to women that are actually women, as oppose to morally confused. I'd like to point out at this point that there's nothing wrong with Pansy. Lots of people think there is, but honestly there's not. She's great, she knows just what to say that'll hurt the most, she does this amazing "oh-I'm-so-sorry-I-thought-you-knew-your-boyfriend-thinks-you-look-like-a-hippogryph" look and she always wins at poker. No idea how. I think she uses her breasts to distract the rest of us while she hides cards up her sleeves.

But she's not exactly interesting. Her hobbies, like most of the Slytherins mainly focus around being unpleasant, looking good and acting haughty. Fun for a bit, but you don't want to do it forever.

And then there's my mother. Who is a remarkable woman, whom I have every respect for, but her main hobbies include visiting the green fairy and spending my father's money. She has every right to, of course, but you don't want to spend that much time with her. Visits to the green fairy are only fun if you get to visit too, and mother doesn't like to share.

All in all, Ginny was the most interesting woman I'd ever met in my life. And so I was wondering a lot about her. Like how could it be that I'd never met her before? And why on earth did she do such bizare things? And was she getting counselling? And was her hair naturally that colour? That sort of reddish bronze that made her look like her head was on fire. Strange, it had stopped reminding me of her brother and now seemed only to highlight how crazy she was. I quite liked it actually. A little. It was still horribly crass, but in an endearing sort of way. And fine, so long as I didn't look directly at it.

So it wasn't so strange that I was going out of my way to see her. I didn't manage though. I keep my eyes peeled (not literally, urg) for the tell-tale red hair and listened out for the hysterical giggling, but she was no where to be seen. I did however see that someone had painted "Filch & Mrs Norris Forever" on the walls in florescent pink paint which I assumed must have been her.

I had just entered the owlery, and was looking for my owl, Persephone, (I'd let my mother choose) who liked to go walk about. She was a bit of a flirt actually, always cosying up to elderly barn owls and stealing their seed when they weren't looking. I finally found her making moon eyes at this snowy white owl that looked a bit familiar, when I heard someone humming to themselves.

I glanced around, but it was quite dim, and I couldn't see anyone, although from the volume it was pretty clear the humming was coming from this room. I left Persephone to her flirtish ways and attempted to find the source of the humming. I know it sounds insane, but even before I saw the red hair, and recognised Ginny sitting underneath the window, I knew it was her.

"What are you doing?" I asked, causing her to glance up. I must have sounded uncertain, because she attempted to finish off my sentence.

"Ginny."

"What?"

"Ginny."

"That's not my name."

"No, it's mine."

"Why would I want to know your name?" I attempted a sneer. I believe I looked more like a cow than I am willing to admit.

"Well, seeing as we are spending so much time together, it seems only natural." She ignored my sneer, or attempt at, and instead concentrated on a pile of something in her lap, and a book that lay open next to her.

"Since when are we spending time together?" I asked, taking a few steps towards her to try and work out what she was doing.

"You haven't run away yet."

"Clearly my sense of self-preservation hasn't kicked in yet."

That got a giggle from her. She seemed a little more sane today than she had before. Which was in a way reassuring, and in another way even more confusing. Would I ever understand her? Did I want to?

"What are you doing?" I worked out that she had a pile of grey wool in her lap.

"I'm knitting."

"That doesn't look like knitting. It looks like a bunch of knots."

"I don't really know how to knit. I'm just making it up as I go along."

I stared at the pile of wool which upon closer inspection was a mesh of knots and twists and there were some knitting needles sticking out (surely she didn't need three?) which she was holding on to.

"Can't you use the book?" I asked, gesturing to the open tome at her side.

"I could. But it doesn't give me the right patterns."

"Why? What are you knitting?"

"A cardigan."

"And you can't find a pattern for a cardigan in a book about knitting?" I crouched next to her and picked up the book, quickly glancing through the content. "No wonder you can't find the right patterns, this is a book about owls!"

She was nuts.

"Oh I know that. I'm knitting for the owls."

Well that explained why she couldn't find the patterns.

So very nuts.

Nice hair though.

"You're knitting cardigans for the owls?"

"Do you want to help?" She was holding two of the needles in one hand and looping some wool over them with her other.

"I'm okay thanks."

It was pretty gross, crouched on the owlery floor. Her hair looked more red today.

"Why exactly are you making cardigans for the owls?"

"No one else is going to, are there?"

"No, because no one else is insane. Owls don't need cardigans."

"Or maybe that's what they want you to think."

"That makes no sense."

"Are you following me?"

It was concerning that I was becoming familiar with her abrupt change in topic.

"No. I just keep happening upon you. You're like a bad penny."

"I think you're following me. People will talk you know. There goes crazy Ginny and Draco they'll say."

"I'm happy you admit that you're crazy, I'm displeased at being put in the same group as you. Why am I crazy?"

"Because you're sitting and watching a crazy girl knit cardigans for owls when clearly owls have no need for cardigans, or any clothes for that matter, instead of...torturing beetles or whatever you Slytherins do for fun."

"You really think we torture beetles for fun? Firstly we don't, and secondly that's not fun. You have terrible misconceptions about Slytherins, you know."

"I have a feeling you like those misconceptions." She pursed her lips for a second, wiggling her knitting needles in the knot of wool she's created. "But that's an idea."

"What is?" I asked suspiciously. She was getting a glint in her eye. A crazed glint.

"Righting wronged Slytherins! It could be my new campaign, I could get stickers printed!" She jumped to her feet, letting the wool and knitting needles clatter to the floor. I stood up too and brushed myself off, looking at her warily.

"You're going to right the wronged Slytherins?"

"Yes, absolutely. Do you want to come?"

I blinked at her. What should I say? On one hand, I felt as though if I said yes, my life might turn upside down in the best way possible. On the other hand, she was a Weasley, horribly crass and didn't she have a thing for Potter?

She was standing there, waiting for me to answer. Why was she asking me anyway? What exactly would she be doing to "Right the Wronged Slytherins"? What would happen if I said yes?

Only one way to find out.

I wouldn't say I'm a rash person. I tend to evaluate the situation and then make a decision based on the facts.

These are the facts.

Number one: Virginia Weasley was in fact insane.

Number two: I wanted to be insane with her.

So I let her drag me off down the corridor at break neck speeds, ignoring the looks that bleary-eyed students gave us, happy for once that I'd woken up early. And you know what?- I've never looked back.

TEee hees. Did you like it? I quite liked it. Not as good as "so's your face" but not bad. I know I say "Virginia" again, but you know..just..well, think of it this way, it's harder for me to write a name I hate, than it is for you to read one you hate. I mean, honestly, does Ginervra suit her? It sounds so OLD. But I shan't quibble, just try and see past it, if it's one of your pet peeeves.

Purlesae review. PLEASE. I AM BEGGING YOU. If you don't review, I don't know you've read it. And if I don't know you've read it, I don't feel motivated to put up the next chapter. SO PURLEASE. And HELLO to TinaMustDie and Mell8 Cause they rock.


	5. Chapter 5

Hello All! Thanks for the reviews! I love them all, in fact, I read them twice, then I put them in my "reviews" folder in Hotmail, and then I read through them again when I'm depressed or have writers' block so it's all vair useful!

This chapter is the last of the written chapters, although I'd feel fairly confident saying that there wont be a long wait until the next. It's the one after that :p Bit of a different chapter, you'll see what I mean :)

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the bow tie I'm standing in.

"So then, she gives Daphne Greengrass a daffodil and tells her that no matter what, someone loves her," I said, snorting to myself, as I tucked into a grilled steak.

I was dining at Chez Snape. Not in the potions room, eating amongst pickled eyeballs is not my idea of fine dining, but in his private quarters, which happened to be right next to the potions room. Snape's private quarters are pretty bland. I wouldn't say his minimalistic, but there's not a lot going on. For a start, everything is black. A black carpet, black curtains black furniture. What can I say? The man likes the colour. It's a bit disconcerting when he appares, sort of melting out of the background, giving the impression that he's a floating face that turns into a person.

The dining room was serving Pumpkin soup so I'd decided to call around to my favourite potions master and catch up. Not that we really did much talking. Surprisingly enough, Snape isn't much of a talker. I personally think he's very shy and takes refuse in formality. Either way, so far we'd discussed the wine (definitely a hint of nutmeg), the steak (grilled to perfection) and the previous potion class (yes the Gryffindors _were_ getting stupider. The conversation had somewhat fizzled out between the time we sat down and started eating, and the silence had become a little oppressing, as it tends to, so I'd brought up Ginny.

After our meeting in the owlery, she'd insisted that I was "vital to her operation" and christened me head of personal relations. That basically meant supplying her with the names of whichever Slytherin we were targetting. We'd been working for the past week. Mainly early in the mornings, late in the nights and at eating times. It turned out that she was a poly-phasic sleeper, which meant she slept in shifts. During breakfast, before and after lunch, a quick nap before dinner, and then sleeping until everyone else had gone to bed. It was easier to get around like that, she explained. To begin with, I found it impossible to keep my eyes open, and wondered if she was secretly stashing caffeine pills in her robes, but it seemed after a week that her constant perkiness was genuine and not drug induced.

We mainly worked covertly, planting "Have a Slytherin Day" stickers on text books, charming the torches to burn with a green light, and leaving motivational messages carved into desks around the school. From time to time, Ginny would insist that someone was in dire need to be righted, and would venture out to confront them. I generally sat back and watched the show, only interfering if it got too serious, as it had once this week, when Goyle had threatened to rearrange her face if she tried to hug him.

"There's no need to be scared of him," I said afterwards, as Ginny stuck her hands in her skirt pockets and looked at me thoughtfully. "He can't spell 'rearrange,' never mind do it."

"I wasn't scared," she replied, and skipped off down the stairs, red hair bobbing behind her. It's actually quite nice. Yes it still makes her look as though her head's on fire, but it reflects her personality. And she couldn't be one of those girls with the blonde or brown hair who look exactly the same. She's far too individual for that. What I don't understand is why she hides it. Why she sneaks about doing the crazy and wonderful things she does, instead of showing it to the world.

"Because I do it for me," she replied, when I asked her. "Other people don't understand."

I wanted to tell her that I understood, at least, I felt like I did, but it felt too clichéd, and she was anything but, so I just smiled, and I think she got what I meant.

It was so strange. Like every time I understood one thing about her, it made me wonder about a thousand others. She was like a constant riddle, a mystery within a mystery. Okay, everytime I tried to describe her I ended up sounding like a failed poet, but I was starting to realise what those guys had been feeling. I did absently find myself comparing Ginny to a summer's day, which was weird, to say the least, but what about Ginny wasn't?

I finished describing the events of the past week to Snape and ate the rest of my steak, which was a delicious as the rest of it had been. When I glanced up at Snape, he was looking at me with a peculiar expression.

"What?" I asked, repressing the urge to smooth down my hair.

"This Ginny that you find so hilarious, you've been spending a lot of time with her?" Hmph, I have to get him drunk before _he'll_ answer any personal questions.

"I suppose so, this week at least."

He regarded me over the top of his wine glass.

"You are aware of course, that she's Ronald Weasley's sister?"

"Now you mention it, it _is_ something of a coincidence that they have the same last name."

"You hate Ronald Weasley."

"And you hate yellow bell bottoms. Ginny isn't like her brother. They have nothing in common."

"Except house, family, hair colour-"

"Actually, Ginny's hair is nothing like her brother's. His is this sort of garish orange colour that looks like a biological hazard. Ginny's is much darker, a deep red, it reflects her personality perfectly, all blazing and beautiful-"

"Red haired women." Snape muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing. Just be careful. So far her brother is unaware of your...interest in his sister?"

"Yes. Not like we're hiding or anything, we're happy to be together, he'd just make a fuss and I'm saying this all wrong, it sounds like we're an item." I babbled. I actually babbled. I've never babbled in my life. Not since I said my first word (snake) at the age of two have I babbled.

"Indeed," said Snape drily, taking a sip of his wine.

"You do believe me don't you?"

"About what?"

"Ginny and I, being just friends."

He arched an eyebrow.

"Is that what they're calling it these days."

"It's really not like that!" I've no idea why I was so set on the idea of it not being like that.

"Have you ever consider," he said, tracing the rim of the glass with a pale finger, "that perhaps it ought to be?"

"Excuse me?"

"Well it's better than you doing unspeakable things with Zabini," he said crossly, vanishing our plates with a wave of his wand. "Anyway, I'm very busy, so I hope you don't mind if I take my leave." He stood.

I remained seated.

"We're in _your _private quarters. Surely I should leave?"

He sat back down and looked at me.

"Well get on with it then!"

I walked out feeling a little bewildered. I thought I heard him mutter "red headed women" again but that might have been my imagination.

Honestly, that man gets a little weird after he's had a glass of wine.

I had a free period next. Should I do some studying, or find Ginny?

I decided that studying was secondary to campaigning to right the wronged Slytherins.

REVIEW. I know this was a bit shorter than usual but still...it takes me a long time to write! Who are the honoured ones that get call outs? Chocolateriku, Mell8 and sophistrysnape. Do you see what I'm doing? I'm trying to guilt you into reviewing again. SO DO.


	6. Chapter 6

Yayyayay, updating. I like this chapter because DUN DUN DURRRR there is some romance! I hope y'all like it tooooo. Hm, just to give you advanced warning, there aren't many more chapters go to..I'd say about three, although I'm not exactly sure how this is going to end..Reviews help make sure that it DOES end, instead of me getting bored and not writing.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the onion ring on my finger.

After I left Snape's quarters that night, I set off to look for Ginny. To begin with, her trail was pretty obvious. She'd stuck up "Slytherins are like teddy bears" stickers along several corridors, as well as scattering rose petals which were enchanted to read "Slytherins Have Feelings Too" on them. She'd also graffitied on the wall "Blaise Zabini is a pussy cat." At least I assumed that was her, because if it hadn't been, then that would mean there were two of them, and the thought terrified me.

I took a few more staircases, hoping to catch up with her, but when we'd last split up, she'd not mentioned specifically where she'd be. She rarely did, giving me a vague "oh, around," and then skipping off and disappearing. Some time later, sometimes only minutes, and sometimes hours and hours, I'd get some sort of note. Often owls. Sometimes enchanted books flew up to me, the title where she wanted to meet. I occasionally received post from her, mostly two lines giving a time and place. Once a picture of a smiling flower drawn onto a scrap of parchment, but I'd figured that was to do with her campaign, as most of the Slytherin table had received them.

When I met her, she would already be doing something. Tying balloons to statues, drawing planets on the ceiling, it varied, but she was never standing still. I wondered about this, mostly she didn't need me, and sometimes I'd feel a stab of something in my gut, when I stumbled upon one of her spectacles that I hadn't been privy to, but she sometimes would specifically seek me out for something as mundane as measuring flowers, which surely she could have done my own.

I did try to ask her.

"Do you really need me for this?" I wondered aloud, as I unwound my measuring tape and looked sceptically at a pansy. It bore no resemblance to the girl.

"Why, somewhere to be? Snazzy Slytherin only party that you're missing?" She answered flippantly, as she always did. Was she ever serious?

"Oh yes, we spend all our time, in the common room, waltzing," I replied sarcastically, and as usual, feeling absurdly flattered that despite obviously not needing me, and not wanting to admit it, she had asked me to come with her.

I was no closer to working out how she got around the school so quickly. She had an awful way of jumping out where I least expected her and sneaking up on me. Not that I got scared, I just didn't like it. I also wondered how it was that I'd never noticed her..."work" before. It was becoming more and more ostentatious every day, so much so that even the notoriously blind to the obvious Gryffindors had begun to notice. Just the other day, while waiting for Ginny outside the Great Hall, I over heard her brother remark to her about her strange conduct with the Slytherins. I supposed he was referring to her levitating a cap that said "Hug Me!" onto Goyle's head. Out of all the things he could have seen, I thought she'd gotten off fairly lightly. Imagine if he'd seen her trying to hug Crabbe.

"What was going on with you and that cap just now?" Asked Weasley Junior, who was, I hate to say, holding hands with The Bookworm. Well, rather him than me.

"Just practicing a levitation charm," said Ginny, the banality of her answer catching me off guard. Imagine, I was surprised because she said something NORMAL. She had this strange expression, sort of blank, but not quite. It did look very normal. I couldn't imagine _this_ girl running around the school like a mad woman, even though I knew for a fact she did it quite frequently.

"Maybe try practicing it _away_ from the Slytherins next time?" Suggested her brother helpfully. Jerk.

At that point, The Bookworm butted in and said something which, shock horror, wasn't quoted from a text book.

"Honestly Ron, you can't be so prejudiced towards the Slytherins. They have feelings too!" It was actually a pretty smart thing to say as oppose to her usual parrotings, but for once I was slightly grateful, because she'd inadvertently, I'm sure, quoted one of Ginny's campaign slogans, and that caused a change on her face. Even from the shadow of the doors I could see it; a tiny smile appeared on her face, her eyes seemed to sparkle and her stance changed subtly, like she'd suddenly remembered who she was. It made me pause to think, but then they were gone, and she was skipping towards me, hair waving madly, eyes ablaze, teeth nibbling at her bottom lip excitedly. _This_ was the girl that I knew.

She was exactly the same as normal, but later, when I considered it again, I stashed it away in my mind, filed under "Exactly How Crazy is She, and Should I Fake My Own Death to Get Away From Her?" The fact that I'd started considering something as ludicrous as faking my own death showed that I was spending too much time around her.

As I continued my search, carefully listening out for hysterical giggles, and looking for her blaze of red hair, I pondered some of the material in that file. Her actions were slightly reminiscent of her twin brothers, the ones that played Quidditch, but at the same time different, because where they had revelled in their deeds and boasted of them, Ginny kept quiet, barely mentioning them to anyone at all, although she had become less covert around me, I supposed, as she'd been sighted frequently, although evidently the onlookers had just been very confused.

After a little while, I was shocked out of my musings by a dead end. Why on earth there were dead ends in a school was beyond me, but I had certainly found one. I supposed that when one had a hole in one's left sock, there would be a big goldfish bowl here. Admitting defeat, I made my way back to the Slytherin Common Room. Upon entering, I saw several things. There was Pansy, standing on a table, Blaise, trying to look up her skirt, but goodness knows why because we've all been there and done that, and Nott playing with that plastic horse of his, muttering "horsey horsey horsey," under his breath.

The boys, well, they normally behaved like that, but this was a bit odd, even for Pansy.

I sauntered over to the table, with my hands in my pockets, a habit I'd picked up from Ginny.

"Pansy, sweetheart, what are you doing?" I asked, rather politely, so I was surprised when she glared tearfully at me and stared straight ahead, bouncing slightly on the table so that a couple of third years glared at her and grabbed their ink bottles to prevent spillages.

"She forgot to use protection again," whispered Blaise, while using a ruler to lift her skirt.

This was a fairly regular occurrence, while I often didn't pay attention in the moment, she was very much...in the moment. And that meant she sometimes forgot to exit "the moment" to take the necessary precautions.

"And that explains standing on the table how?"

"Oh for goodness sake Blaise," hissed Pansy, snatching the ruler and throwing it at his forhead. She addressed me. "I'm standing on the table, because if I get as high as possible, the little jerks might find it harder to get up there. Obviously."

"Obviously," said Blaise and I in unison.

"Well, good luck with that Pansy," I said, giving her a salute and heading up the stairs to my dorm.

After climbing the stairs, I pushed the oak door which led to the two bed room that I shared with Nott. Although I didn't actually like Nott, I was thrilled to be sharing a room with him, because due to his insanity, he didn't sleep in his bed. I don't think I've ever seen him sleep in his bed at any point. We normally find him sprawled in front of the fire place in the common room every morning, but he's been reported to sleep in the owlery as well. The benefit for me, is that I get the room pretty much to myself. I was hoping to find a note for me, maybe an owl.

What I did find was Ginny, stretched across my duvet.

I immediately, closed and locked the door, putting the key in my pocket and stalked over to the bed.

"What on earth are you doing?" I asked, I was partially angry, and partially bewildered, and a little flattered that she was lying on my bed.

She beamed up at me from her position on her stomach and I saw that she held a quill in one hand. Stretching her free hand up she wiggled her fingers at me.

"Hey Draco, we've been waiting for you!" She said, giggling. I saw that she'd drawn faces onto her fingers, smiling, sad, shocked, angry and a little baby with a dummy for her pinky. It was very cute in a weird way.

"You're in my room!" I exclaimed, perhaps a little louder than I should have, but she'd never been in my room before, and I couldn't believe how reckless she had been. No Gryffindor had set foot in the Slytherin part of the school for years. (AN: That's what he thinks :p))

"Isn't this a shared dorm?" She asked, tricking me into answering such an obvious answer.

"Yes, but-"

"You share it with Nott don't you? Lovely boy, I'm thinking of sending him one of those miniature stable sets."

"Oh you _would_ like Nott wouldn't you?" I said, a spark of anger flowing through me, for no apparent reason. "I cannot believe you're in my room! Please tell me you at least came in through the window?"

"Afraid not, I snuck in after Pansy. But don't worry, she was far too concerned about not getting pregnant to notice me."

"That's not the point!" I yelled, surprising myself and her, for once. I took a deep breath and tried to explain myself. "Can you imagine what would have happened if someone had caught you?"

"They'd have made me an honorary Slytherin for being sneaky enough to get in?"

"No!" How could I make her grasp the seriousness of what she'd done?

"Okay okay, don't have a heart attack. I'll let you in on a little secret." She swung her legs onto the side of the bed and patted the space next to her. I sat down obediently, a little startled by her close proximity, and even more so when she started to take her cloak off.

"Hey! What are you doing?" I exclaimed, nearly jumping back up.

"Relax," she said holding the cloak up. "And watch. Now you see me." She turned the cloak around and then disappeared, along with the cloak. "Now you don't!"

"You're cloak is reversible? It's also an invisibility cloak?" I said, starting to smile as objects in my room started floating.

"Got it in one. My secret's out," she sighed, with mock remorse, removing the cloak a little so that her face hung suspended in the middle of the room, a few tendrils of red spilling out. With a flourish, she removed the cloak entirely, causing air currents to fly around the room.

I was pleased to have finally discovered how she kept getting away from me, and why I rarely saw her around school, one down, about a billion other questions to go. Ginny slung the cloak on the back of a chair and sat back next to me, grabbing my hand. For a second, I tensed up, then she grabbed the quill again and started drawing on my finger tips, so I relaxed a little.

"Heyy.." I protested weakly. Truthfully, I had no problem with her doodling on my hands, she was holding my palm still with one hand, while her free hand inked faces on my fingers.

"How long have you had this?" I asked, looking at the cloak. Truth be told, I was curious as to where she got an invisibility cloak, a reversible one at that. I'd wanted one myself but they were so rare that I'd never come across one in a shop.

"Since first year," she murmured, and something crossed her face that I didn't understand. I couldn't help but notice how close she was holding my hand to her face. I could have stroked the soft curve of her cheek, touched the hollow of her throat.

"And no one noticed?" I said, not out of curiosity but to deter myself from the line of thought. I could feel her breath on my palm.

"It's easier to notice something that you can see, not something that's missing, especially when you've been used to it being missing," she chastised, smiling slightly but still concentrating on her finger family. "There we go," she said, turning my hand around so that I could see the array of different faces. I was about to comment, but she didn't release my hand, instead turned it over in both of her hands, and traced the long life line on it. I nearly shivered at her touch, but repressed the instinct, swallowing nervously, suddenly very aware of how close she was. I could see the delicate strands of red hair on her neck. It was a relief, and at the same time a terrible disappointment when she dropped my hand. But it was only for a second as she reinked the quill and grabbed for it again.

"Great, now I've got a family of finger people, I'm well on my way to insanity," I muttered, trying to regain a grip on the situation.

"You can always wash it off," she said, putting liberal amounts of ink into whatever she was drawing on my palm, at the base of my thumb. I wouldn't wash them off, of course. I'd leave them until they'd faded away, which would probably be very soon, what with personal hygiene, but there was no way I'd intentionally try to remove them.

Before I could reply, she dropped the quill, splattering ink droplets on my bed, luckily it didn't show up so much against the dark green duvet, and pressed whatever she'd been drawing against the palm of her hand. For a moment, we were linked, her small freckled hand pressed against my pale one, then she removed her hand. I stared at her for a second, but she wasn't looking at me, she was grinning at her own palm. I glanced at mine and saw a face, slightly smudged, but different to the ones she'd drawn on my fingers. This one was a girl, with a mess of curly hair sprouting from her head and a wicked smile.

"This is you, I presume," I said, my voice calm in comparison to my emotions. Ginny smiled at me, that innocent smile of hers, that brightened her whole face, and so the whole room. It felt as though the sun had come out from behind a cloud.

"Yep, a striking resemblance. I'm a good artist, although the paintings in this school would disagree." She paused, apparently thinking. "Do you remember that? It was our first date." I froze momentarily. Had she just said "date"? Her tone had been relaxed, but she seemed to be examining her fingers with more concentration than the small task required.

"First date?" I said, trying the words on my tongue. I hadn't dated much, well, not really anything I'd call dating.

"Unless of course you count the time you walked into my charm," she said, beginning to blush and laughing nervously. I felt just as confused as her, so decided to break away from this uncertain territory.

"I didn't walk into it, I detected it!" I said, in mock outrage.

The tension was broken, and she collapsed into giggles. When she'd calmed down, she stood up from the bed, and I leaned back to see her better.

"Well, I must go, duty calls," she said, pretending to be resigned.

"Defending the Slytherins? I thought I was "critical to your cause!"" I pouted a little, it was shocking, I never pout. It's unseemly.

"Nope, I think that campaign is sort of over. I'm getting bored. Besides," she added brightly, "I've got a new project now!"

"And what's that?" I asked, suspiciously.

"Wait and see."

What do y'all think? Please tell me...I'm always worried I'll make things move to fast, or it's just horrible unbelievable, so please let me know! Oh, also, incase anyone is a tad confused about the timeline, the events in the first chapter took place just under two months ago.

Since my guilt trip last time worked so well, shout outs to:

Mell8, TinaMustDie, SnowEmpress, Thumper, chocolateriku and sophistrysnape. You guys all rock my socks. If I had any. But on the upside, I painted my toe nails! Okay, sorry, too much information right? REVIEW.


	7. Chapter 7

Hurray for updating! Here is the next chapter. Not so much humour, lots of romance, in my opinion. Thanks to all my lovely reviewers, y'all are stars. I hope you enjoy this chappyter!

A few days later, I was on my way to my room for an afternoon nap. Ginny had kept me up the previous night stalking Nearly Headless Nick. She insisted that he was up to no good. I suspected she wanted to play dressing up. It certainly seemed that way after she donned a funny looking cap, monocle and bubble pipe. This would have been absurd enough had she not had bright red frizzy hair. The result was that I couldn't stop laughing, even when she sternly informed me that I was jeopardising our mission. To make the whole situation more bizarre, as was Ginny Custom, she refused to turn the invisibility cloak inside out while we were following the ghost, because that "was cheating." It would have been pretty useful. As it was, we were forced to hide behind vases and pillars and such some way away from him, and when you added in the fact that he could float through walls, a horribly unfair advantage, it wasn't surprising that we eventually lost him, but not until Ginny had pulled me through at least three secret passages (full of cobwebs of course) and forced me to hide in a dusty alcove with her because she thought Nick was catching on. If I'm honest, I'm making this sound like it was more work than it was. The truth is that it's so easy to be around Ginny, and to catch her infectious enthusiasm, that it was like running around with your own personal sun. I felt it hard to imagine what exactly I'd been doing before this, and the time we spent apart seemed to drag on for longer and longer.

Harder for me to accept was the fact that I had no problem with hiding with her in cramped spaces, or ducking under the invisibility cloak when Filch got too close and there was no where else to hide. She was so small and warm, I could hear her heartbeat and her breathing, feel her shoulders rising slightly and her breath on my skin. It almost drove me mad, and at the same time made me feel so tranquil. When the danger was averted, and she pulled away, I was always left breathless, as though I'd run a marathon, and I couldn't look her in the eye until a little while later.These weren't feelings I was familiar with, nor did I know what to do with them. I'm not a girl, I hadn't spent pointless hours reading trashy novels about it like Pansy, nor was I used to gushing this sort of stuff to get girls to like me, as was the custom of Blaise. Actually, the custom of Blaise was more to gush that stuff to make anything that moves like him.I was confused, to put it lightly, not sure what to do with the feelings, not sure what the feelings were, and definitely not ready to label them.

So I ignored them.

I only slept for half an hour, when I was woken by an irregular tapping at the window. I was irritated because I had a free afternoon and had planned to use it for sleeping, just incase Ginny wanted another venture after dark. Even with these precautions, I still couldn't maintain anywhere near her level of energy, and occasionally resorted to energy boosting potions. It bothered me to some extent that she never gave me more notice before springing a new activity on me, but when I vocalised this complaint she lightly remarked that I didn't have to come with her. The little importance she placed on me was...not something I liked to think about. Even less pleasant was the idea that there had been someone before me, someone else who ran around with her. I placated myself with the knowledge that I'd never seen her with anyone, nor had she ever said anything which would suggest that I was a replacement. And she could hardly give me more notice about our outings, she practically made them up on the spot.Still, they were definitely getting more obvious. Apart from the stunt with Goyle's hat that her brother had noticed, nearly a week ago, a few Gryffindors had noticed her redecorating the door to Snape's ofice. Namely draping green and silver tinsel around it and writing Severus Snape in big twisting letters. At least it had been house colours. I'd actually asked Snape about it, not mentioning Ginny of course, and he said he'd quite liked it. Ginny was thrilled of course, when I related the news back to her. Somehow word had gotten back to her brother, who confronted her about it, but she passed it off as a dare. I wondered how many more times he was going to believe her feeble excuses, and if she didn't want him to know, why wasn't she being more discrete? It was only a matter of time before Weasley elder would notice that I was almost always there, that half the time I was standing right next to Ginny and helping her. Granted, Ron had an amazingly low IQ, and it was only thanks to the bookworm that he'd managed to pass his OWLs at all.Until then, however, I was happy to leave him blissfully ignorant.

I wasn't stupid, I knew that the golden trio would be less than thrilled to find out that Ginny and I were spending copious amounts of time together, but on the other hand I most certainly wasn't about to give Ginny up. Not without a fight. Really, he should be happy with the way things were progressing. With so much of my mind taken up with Ginny, I hardly had time for them. Most of our sparring matches now ended with a lazy "So's your face," in their direction. I just wasn't as interested. I doubted that they would see it that way.

The tapping at my window, when I finally rolled out of bed to address it, was predictably an owl, and still predictably an owl from Ginny, because no one else sent me owls barring the breakfast mail.

"Malfoy-face," the letter read. I paused. Did I find her nickname for me endearing, insulting or sickening? I decided upon bemusing. "Meet me at the lake at threeish so that I can kidnap you and sell your hair as knock off unicorn tail hair and continue to fund my poppy seed addiction. Love you lots like Acid Pops, Ginny. P.S Just kidding about the hair thing. P.P.S Or am I?

I glanced at the clock that was set on the mantle piece. It read nearly three, so I shooed the owl out of the window before pulling on a clean shirt and pulling a comb through my hair. I vaguely wondered if she did like acid pops, or if it was an insult while straightening my collar. Giving my reflection a satisfied smirk, as was the traditional Malfoy way, I left my room.

By two fifty, I was nearly at the lake, so I slowed intentionally. There was no need to be overly early. A part of me protested at this, reasoning that the earlier I got there, the more time I could spend with Ginny. I ignored this voice of reason, I'd been fashionably late since I learnt the time, and I wouldn't break the record now. When I did arrive at the lake, I felt a jolt of annoyance that Ginny wasn't there, but as I glanced around the water's edge, I saw her on the opposite side of the lake, waving at me from the top of a small hill. With a sigh, I supposed she hadn't specified where around the lake to be, and trudged off to join her. Luckily she'd turned away from me and was looking somewhere else. I loved that. I can't stand it when you're walking towards someone and they're smiling at you and you're smiling at them, and it's so damn awkward you just want to die right there. I finally reached her to see that she was smiling up at the sun, but with her eyes closed, eyelashes brushing her cheekbones.

"Careful," I said with a smile in my voice. "Keep your eyes open or you could fall."

I gestured to the semi steep drop on the side that wasn't facing the lake, as we were currently standing on a hill, the kind that's higher on one side than the other. The slope didn't look bad, steep enough to give you some momentum, but full of long grasses and free of thistles and stinging nettles, so unlikely to cause much of a problem. I frowned as I looked further down where it leveled out. There was what looked like a red blanket with a hamper next to it, but no one around.

"Looks like someone's having a picnic," I remarked. I glanced at Ginny to see that she finally had her eyes open. The brown was softened into a deep amber in the sunlight.

"Someone is," she said, with a wicked grin.

"We're having a picnic?" I guessed. "That's surprising."

"How so?"

"It's the most normal thing we've done together, by far."

"What about two weeks ago when we did our homework together!"

I stared at her, nonplussed.

"You charmed our chairs and table to stick to the table. We did our homework upside down."

"That was fun, we should do it again."

"I think you're loosing your touch."

"Oh you think you can do better?" There was a challenge in her voice.

"I know I can."

"I challenge you to find the craziest way for us to get to our picnic," she said, after a few seconds thought.

I glanced at her, appraisingly.

"We could fly?"

"No brooms, genius."

It was my turn to grin.

"That's not the kind of flying I was talking about."

In a swift movement I stepped close to her, wound my arms around her waist, holding her close to my chest, and then deliberately threw us both down the hill. As I'd predicted the grass broke our fall, and I hit the ground first, Ginny almost flew away from me but I held her tightly. We rolled down, over and over in a whirl of sky and grass, blue and green, and all I saw was Ginny Ginny Ginny.  
Ginny laughing, the smile that reached her eyes, the red tendrils of hair whisked by the wind, the eyes that were so captivating that I didn't realise we'd stopped moving until she rolled off me and lay giggling breathlessly by my side.

I turned my head slightly, so that I could meet her eyes and we both shared a smile.

"You have grass in your hair," I murmured, gently taking it out.

"The hamper's empty," she whispered back.

"What?"

"I forgot to pack it! Oh I'm so sorry," she said sitting up and putting a hand to her cheek.

I chuckled gently and sat up too, brushing a few blades of grass from my clothes.

"It doesn't matter."

"Yes, it does," she said with a mournful expression, shuffling closer to me. "I said we were going to have a picnic. Now, we're just going to sit on a blanket."

She was sitting right next to me, if I'd shifted a millimetre our bodies would have touched.

"Sitting on blankets is underrated." She had freckles on her eyelids. I wanted to kiss her. With the realisation came the knowledge that I'd wanted to kiss her for a while now.

"Yes," she breathed. "The blankets probably feel unloved."

She was moving closer.

"We should make a campaign to raise their popularity." Was I making any sense? I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure if I'd ever make sense again. I was going to kiss her, I had to kiss her. I couldn't bear to think of the consequences if I didn't kiss her.

"Oh dear," said someone that wasn't Ginny, and therefore was entirely unwelcome. I turned my head to glare at them, and heard Ginny emit a little "oh!" next to me.

"Oh dear, "said Granger again. Oh dear indeed. That would have been bad enough, but as we sat there, frozen, we heard horribly familiar idle chatter and then Potter and Weasley came into view. I have never hated them as much as I did right then. Of all the times to interrupt me they chose now. I scowled at them as they froze besides Granger, trying to process what they saw and not being able to. Potter's eyes widened in dramatic disbelief and Weasley forgot to close his mouth.

"Oh dear," Granger said once again.

I looked at her scathingly.

"Is that it?" I asked, raising a pale eyebrow. "Because if that's all, I'd be immensely satisfied if you three could relocate. I was in the middle of something."

"Like hell you were," said The Weasel King, and with speed that I would never have credited him with, he tackled me, pulled his arm back, and before I could react, connected his fist with my face.

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I'm not going to guilt you into reviewing this time, I'll give you a break. So review if you want. Also, I wondered if anyone was up for being a temporary beta? The lovely megan who normally betas my stuff is pretty busy, and I don't want to bother her with it. If it's someone who really likes the story that'd be cool, 'cause they'd get to read bits before they got posted. And my grammar would stop being so appalling. Just send me a line if you're interested. :)


	8. Chapter 8

Hey everyone! Firstly, thanks SO much for all the reviews! I was like, wow-ed. Is it because I changed the summary slightly and more people read it, or were you guys just so excited about that particular chapter?

Secondly, the beta position for this story has been filled by chocolateriku, who so far is doing a marvellous job as far as I can tell :) Thanks to everyone who offered, and I hope you all appreciate the spelling and grammar in this chapter!! I myself am very excited. I'm also loving the fact that a lot of you are becoming familiar, like there's an AoI crew that review often. Actually, you might just review other things I've written, but I'm started to recognise your names! Special thanks go to sophistrysnape, MalfoyDebauchery, TinaMustDie (who has the craziest catchphrases you know), Valentine's Riddle, Mell8 and Snow Empress. You guys rock!

So, enough crazed ramblings from me, hope you enjoy this chapter!

Disclaimer: I do not have opposable thumbs and had to get a monkey to type this for me. Also, I do not own Harry Potter, my friend Monique does. Keeps him in her cupboard and feeds him sunflower seed oil.

I'm embarrassed to say that after this, a very undignified fight ensued. It wasn't so much a fight, as me trying to get the lump that was Weasley off me, and Weasley trying to lay another punch on me. I could hear Ginny shrieking something in a tone so very different to the one she usually used around me that for a second I didn't know who it was. Granger was also yelling something, but I wasn't paying so much attention, seeing as I was in something of a situation. This whole thing makes me seem a bit useless, seeing as: A. I wasn't throwing any punches, and B. I hadn't managed to get Ginny's brother off me. This was no fault of my own. First, I had my hands full, so no chance of punching. And what would have been the point? I didn't want to upset Ginny, and this current situation, pitching me as the victim seemed much more to my liking. Secondly, I feel it's necessary to mention that although we both play quidditch, Weasely is a keeper. I, on the other hand, am a seeker. Keepers spend a lot of time throwing and catching things etc., which had clearly enhanced Weasley's troll like build. I have to maintain a compact seeker-like physique. Obviously I was at a disadvantage.

After a few moments longer than I think was really necessary, Potter pulled his friend off me, while Granger glanced around worriedly, no doubt making sure no teachers had seen her friends breaking the rules. I got to my feet and dabbed at my nose with a handkerchief (I always carry a handkerchief. They're just handy.) To my disgust, it came back red. I hate seeing my own blood. Blood should stay in under your skin, going through your organs and stuff, not be outside your body. It defies the rules of nature. Also my blood is really bright red and I don't like looking at it. Not to mention that it looks really strange, what with my pale complexion.

So there we were, staring at each other, breathing heavily, scowling. I was about to throw a snide comment at them, when Ginny rushed over to me, snatched the handkerchief out of my hand and started dabbing my face with it. I was ridiculously touched by this. Not only because I didn't have a mirror to hand and thus hadn't done a particularly effective job of removing the blood myself, but also because it was an absurdly sweet gesture. It made me want to give her cookies and kittens and sweets and whatever else she wanted. Weird feelings to be sure, especially because up to that point I'd always considered myself one of those people who don't like animals. But the idea of Ginny and a little white kitten was semi appealing.

Unfortunately for Ginny, her brother didn't take so kindly to her actions, and she'd hardly murmured, "There you go," and removed the handkerchief before he started yelling.

"Ginny! What the hell are you doing?"

Ginny jumped away, biting her lip and looking like a deer caught in the headlights. I didn't understand how the confident, happy-go-lucky girl I knew could so quickly be transformed into an unsure, nervous one, although the lip biting was adorable.

"I was just... He was bleeding so.." She trailed off and looked at the ground. I felt mildly upset that she hadn't defended herself, or told her brother where to go.

"How can you just stand there? With him?" I sniffed at the emphasis on me. "He's evil, he's in Slytherin!"

"He's not evil." The last person that I expected to be standing up for me, Granger, said, looking uncomfortable. Weasely looked like he was about to explode. "What I mean is," she continued hurriedly upon noting his expression, "they're not all evil. He is, of course, but some aren't, look at the "Slytherins Are Humans" campaign that's been going on."

"You want to debate the humanity of Slytherins now?" muttered Potter in blatant disbelief.

"It's the principal of the thing," his bushy haired friend hissed back.

I could have burst out laughing. I did a bit actually, more of a chuckle though, a sardonic chuckle.

"The "Slytherins Are Humans," campaign has shown you that we're not all evil?" I said incredulously, not noticing Ginny's expression change to one of horror in my glee. "I was the one doing that campaign. Although your sister was the main protagonist. This is too good. You don't notice that your baby sister is running around school protesting about unfair treatment of "evil Slytherins" with an "evil Slytherin," not to mention all the other things she gets up to, but when she's going to have a picnic, you catch her?"

"If she's having a picnic, why is the hamper empty?" Asked Granger suspiciously, while the two boys stared from me to Ginny in an annoying way.

"I forgot to pack it," muttered Ginny, still studying the floor.

"Ginny, what's going on? What's he talking about, and why is he even here?" Demanded her brother.

"I'm here because I was invited, unlike some people," I said haughtily. "And she doesn't owe you any explanations."

We glared at each other again, and I was fairly sure the whole thing was about to dissolve back into a brawl, so I was shifting my weight backwards and getting ready to throw the first punch, when Ginny spoke up.

"Yes, I do."

We both looked at her blankly. (Urg, I've mentioned myself and Weasely as a "we". I can only hope that this never happens again.) I was confused, because as far as I was concerned, she shouldn't have anything to say to him, and he was probably confused because he's a moron.

She was standing close to me, facing him, shoulders squared, head up, jaw set, as though she was going to war. I wanted her to look at me, to explain why we couldn't just leave the three of them to rot We were happy weren't we? The two of us got on well enough, we were good friends, maybe more. And she'd been flying solo for a while before that. Where was the problem?

"Ginny, you don't have to go," I said quietly, so that only she heard, I reached out my hand and twined our fingers together on instinct, not noting how foreign it felt, only feeling a distinct bolt of anger and sadness when she gently pulled away.

"I'm sorry," she said, before joining her brother and his friends, and walking away.

I stood there, frozen and numb, watching their receding backs until they disappeared. I remained stationary as the numbness faded and was replaced with an aching emptiness that caught me completely off guard. I'd never known feelings could grow so quickly, never guessed that they could become so potent, so all-consuming. I waited while my mind processed all that had happened, then distanced it all from me, as though it had happened to someone else. Then I vanished the blanket and the empty hamper, the little remains of our meeting, hardened my heart, and walked back to the castle alone.

Review Damn You! Purleasssse?? (in the manner of a desperate cat) If there are lots of reviews, you'll get a super long chapter next time. I'm talking like..over 2000 words.


	9. Chapter 9

Hallo everyone! Here's the long chapter as promised. I'm not sure what you'll think of it, as there's no romance, but a lot of moping. I want to say thanks very much to chocolateriku, because without her, I'd have had an eight year old Snape at the Yule ball...So yes, hopefully this chapter will meet your standards and make you smile, oh and let me know what you think about Pansy and Blaise.

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Time's a strange thing isn't it? When you've been sitting with Snape for three hours trying to pry out some more details about his mystery redhead, it seems to take much longer than usual. When you're playing Quidditch and looking for the snitch, it rushes past you. In the last few weeks, time had passed in peculiar dollops. Long stretches, divided by meetings with Ginny which seemed to fly by. Since the day of the picnic, the day she'd left me, it hardly seemed to pass at all. 

My life was, for lack of a better word, empty. It was as though I was a vast space, in which there had been laughter and flying and excitement. There'd been anticipation and surprise and beauty. Now I felt hollow. I woke up in the morning because I had to, I went to sleep because it logically followed, I stuck to my routine precisely, just to be doing something.

How had I survived without Ginny? It was like she'd been a sun, so bright that I was completely blinded even after she'd departed to do anything I'd taken pleasure in before. Torn between bitterness towards Ginny and her brother, and self loathing for being so disposable, I wallowed in my misery. I stayed mainly in the Slytherin Common Room for the first few days, staring into the fire morosely, listening to the faint neighs emanating from the corner where Nott sat. To begin with, no one noticed my brooding to be different from my sitting haughtily, but it slowly became apparent. I wasn't angry, I rarely lashed out; I was just lifeless, bored, and nothing caught my interest. How can you go back to being regular after starting to become so extraordinary? How can you live the life that everyone else lives when you know what you're missing out on? Worse than that was the missing Ginny. I realized how often we'd been in contact, if not direct. The secret smiles in the corridors, the subtle looks in the Great Hall, the notes I received and paper aero-planes that hit me. Without realizing, I'd started to define my day by those little gestures, looked forward to them and treasured them.

Now I wasn't sure what to look forward to.

Ginny had left. She'd chosen her brother over me, and even though some part of me sensed that it was justifiable, that to choose an enemy turned acquaintance over family was too high a price for me to ask her to pay, I still felt bitter. I had nothing to compare it to, of course. I'd choose Ginny over my father in a second. I tend to like people who actually talk to me and say nice things, which are actions that confuse my father terribly. My mother, well I suppose I am rather fond of her and her drunken ways, her silly habits of poking me with the sugar tongs and sleeping with her mouth open. In a way, she reminded me of Ginny. Shy and painfully sober at times, and then at other times, when she was more relaxed, a completely different person.

Of course it didn't matter what decision I would have made, had our positions been reversed. It only mattered what decision she had made.

About two weeks after our last meeting, I was sitting in the Slytherin Common Room and staring broodingly into the fire. I'd hardly seen Ginny. I forced myself to not glance towards the Gryffindor table at mealtimes, and our paths seldom crossed during the day. I realized that our coincidental rendezvous, which had become so frequent during the past weeks, hadn't been anywhere near as coincidental as I'd been led to believe. This simultaneously warmed and chilled me. I liked the knowledge that she'd sought me out, it had to mean something. You don't go looking for a person you don't like, right? But on the other hand, she clearly wasn't making an effort to find me anymore, so it was meaningless. Lots of things were like that nowadays, like when I did see her, walking with her brother, laughing with the three of them, talking to some dopey boys in her class. On one hand it was wonderful to see her so happy, so free. But the fact that she wasn't with me wasn't something I could easily overlook.

Blaise had been trying to coax me into a thumb war, after noting that I'd been down for the last few days, but I'd steadfastly refused, and he'd finally started talking to Pansy about potions or whatever. At least it had started as talking. Right now they looked like they were well on their way to third base. I groaned inwardly. Was this how I was going to spend the rest of my school career? Moping in the common room and watching my friends put their hands in places that they really shouldn't when in company? Something had to be done.

"Let's do something," I said abruptly, not realizing the words had left my mouth until Pansy and Blaise disentangled themselves to look at me querying, and by then it was too late to take it back.

I pondered, rather quickly, because I didn't want them to get bored and recommence their activities. There are few things worse than seeing Blaise and Pansy make out. Not because they're disgusting or anything, well, obviously it's gross and voyeuristic, but it's so fake. Blaise always starts whispering something sappy to her, and she gets all virtuous and keeps asking him to stop, even though all three of us know, yes, I'm included in their twisted relationship, that if he did stop, she'd start again.

I toyed with the idea of going out and making fun of some Hufflepuffs, but what would be the point? We could raid Blaise's stash of firewhiskey, but the only one of us that couldn't handle their drink was Pansy, and she was a sleepy drunk.

Now that I look back on it, I've no idea why I suggested what I did, perhaps it was the fact that they were looking at me so expectantly, but the next thing I know, we're all outside the common room, on our way to investigate Snape.

It felt good to be out and doing something. Something besides going to class or meals. I glanced uncertainly at my friends. Blaise was acting like an unspeakable, dramatically glancing around and hiding behind pillars in an attempt to be inconspicuous, Pansy was following his antics with amused eyes while tip toeing so that her stiletto heels didn't sound on the stone floors. They both kept offering me inclusive grins and I felt a surge of comradeship towards them. My father had joined the Deatheaters in search of such a feeling. I should have let him know that it could be achieved simply by taking two of your friends to investigate a teacher at eleven in the night.

The late hour meant that few people were around to begin. We didn't meet anyone, and seeing as I was the Slytherin prefect and therefore expected to patrol these parts anyways... . Pansy and I smirked at Blaise's actions as he crouched behind a large cat statue a little way in front of us and made complicated hand gestures in our direction. It looked like he was trying to tell us that a giant bird was coming towards us. We looked at him, baffled, and then quickly ran to join him behind the statue, realizing that his bird flying sign was actually him trying to communicate "Teacher Coming" as we'd gathered from the footsteps coming closer. We hid behind the statue, feeling more than a little foolish, me more than the others since the statue wasn't as inanimate as it ought to have been, and kept hitting my face with it's big stone tail. A few seconds later, Snape swept into view, robes billowing behind him as was his custom. He muttered something about an exploding toilet and hurried off.

As his footsteps faded, we all let out a collective sigh of relief. Not really sure why, it's not like he would have taken points or anything, but we'd gotten a little caught up, I guess.

"Let's go then chaps," said Blaise, putting the hood on his cloak up so that he looked like a dementor.

"I hope you don't think I'm doing that, I'll get hood hair," said Pansy, looking at his hood.

"Let's go, Draco and I will risk it."

"Just a second," I said, moving out from behind the damn statue. "This is for hitting me with your cursed tail." Saying that, I gave it a light shove. Unfortunately, it turned out to be hollow, and crashed to the floor with a loud bang. The three of us stood frozen for a second, before simultaneously turning on heel and sprinting away from the scene.

"Stupid cat statue tail," I muttered angrily under my breath as I slowed and saw Pansy and Blaise do the same in my periphery. I leaned against a wall to get my breath back, listening carefully for pursuers, but there was nothing except the sound of our breathing. Blaise leaned forward with his hands on his knees, this was probably the most exercise he'd done in months, his hobbies not being physical, unless it included heavy petting. Pansy pressed her perfectly manicured nails to her mouth and drew in several deep breaths before collapsing against Blaise with giggles.

"Did you have to push it?" She asked, between giggles. I shrugged and offered her a smirk, she rolled her eyes and we carried on walking.

After a few more minutes, we reached his quarters. On the way we'd decided that it would be more profitable to investigate his quarters rather than the potions classroom, as the potions classroom was often burnt, flooded, or vanished, due to the poor level of skill possessed by many of his students. We reached the door, and I swallowed as I realized that the green and silver decorations Ginny and I had put up remained. Perhaps it hadn't been such a good idea.

"Out of the way comrade, best leave this to the professionals," said Blaise, snapping me out of my reverie. He pushed forward and crouched down beside the door, looked through the keyhole and then knocked on the wood and listened to the vibration.

"Oh yes, just as I thought," he said, offering Pansy and I a superior smile. He waved his wand in a tight pattern and murmured something, there was a blue light and the door opened with a snick. He stood up looking smug.

"What spell was that?" Asked Pansy.

"A great wizard never reveals his secrets," he replied mysteriously.

"Oh a great wizard? Let me know if there's one about, I'd just love to meet him," she replied sarcastically, as I pushed the door open. I'd been in Snape's chambers several times and so I was not surprised to see an apparently blank wall in a tiny room barely big enough for the three of us to stand in. On the wall, there hung a portrait of a knight in black armor.

"Gillyweed?" I ventured, but the knight shook his head. Clearly Professor Snape's password had changed since the last time I had been there. "Looks like we're at a dead end unless you can guess the password before Snape gets back."

"I think not," said Pansy, sniffing derisively and sauntering up to the portrait. She flicked her chocolate hair back and adopted a stance that was nothing short of seductive. "You know," she purred to the knight who seemed transfixed, although I'm not sure how much of that was due to her seductive manner or the fact that only three buttons on her blouse were done up. "If you let us in, I could make it worth your while." She licked her lips, the knight following the movement hungrily.

I grimaced, half impressed and half disgusted. Blaise looked half impressed and half jealous of the knight that was getting such a show. But that's Pansy for you. She know every one of her charms and knows how to use them to her best advantage and that only makes her more appealing. She's like those Venus Fly Traps that lure bugs in with their pretty colours. One of the reasons I'd made a mental note back in second year to avoid her bad side

As Pansy continued to sweet talk the painting, I wondered about how she and Blaise would react if they found out about Ginny and I. Not that there was anything to find out now, she'd made her feelings pretty clear, but what would they think? Some part of me thought they'd disown me for sinking to associate with a pure blood traitor, but a bigger part disagreed. They were my friends after all, weren't they? They'd stuck by me through lost Quidditch matches, when my father was called to the Dark Lord and that time the damn Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher who ended up trying to kill us all turned me into a ferret. And who could speak to Ginny, watch her, be around her and still care about pureblood and mudblood?

"I suppose I could help," said the knight finally, after several suggestive advances from Pansy. "But I'm not just letting you in. You have to prove that you mean Professor Snape no harm."

"Sure," I offered lazily. It wasn't like we meant him harm. We just wanted to delve into his dark and mysterious past, perhaps come up with some blackmail material for next time he tried to stop us sneaking out to Hogsmeade.

"You must answer three questions correctly about the Professor, then you can enter," he stipulated.

"Done," said Pansy, smirking.

"Question number one. What is the most embarrassing item of clothing that Snape has in his wardrobe?" Asked the Knight, eyeing us warily.

"I'd be embarrassed of all the black he wears. Just because it's slimming doesn't mean you should wear it day in day out," murmured Pansy critically. Blaise shrugged at me, I wasn't surprised. Neither Pansy nor Blaise had ever been admitted to Snape's personal chambers, and hadn't even looked at his wardrobe, never mind inside it. I on the other hand had, once, back in third year when I ran in to complain about a Care of Magical Creatures lesson (his security was more relaxed then, evidently he'd never suspected I would use information against him at such a young age) and caught him shaking out a pair of canary coloured trousers.

"Yellow bell bottoms that he bought on a whim in the late sixties, most probably while experimenting with mind altering potions," I stated clearly, and the black knight nodded in agreement.

"Question two, why did he become a Death Eater?" We all shivered slightly at the word, used so lightly here.

"For power, brotherhood and revenge," said Blaise in a low voice, we all knew the reasons for joining the Death Eaters, we'd all toyed with the idea at some point or another, whether encouraged by our parents or simply curious about the wizard so great that others feared to even say his name. The knight nodded again, his eyes betraying a little alarm at the three of us having done so well, and I braced myself as the last question was likely to be the hardest.

"Who was the love of his teenager life?"

This was by far the hardest for me. Try as I might, all I'd ever got was that she'd had red hair, and I didn't know any witches that had been at school with Snape and had red hair.

"Bellatrix Black?" I offered hesitantly.

The knight raised his chin smugly.

"Incorrect."

I cursed softly. Breaking and entering was apparently a lot harder than it seemed, I was about to suggest we go and make fun of some Hufflepuffs, when Blaise stepped forward.

"How about this? You let us in, and we don't do to you what we did to the corridor of portraits on the first floor?" He said threateningly, conjuring a quill out of no where. I jolted slightly at the mention of the first floor graffiti that Blaise was apparently taking credit for, and the emptiness inside me that had sunk to a dull ache with my present preoccupation reared its head again.

The knight seemed startled and scowled at us before the door swung inwards and we stepped through, Blaise sarcastically saluting the portrait who made a rude gesture in return.

We were in Snape's private quarters, I had been in them several times, and so the usual gothic decor was nothing unusual, nor was the huge bookcase full of dusty tomes or intimidating leather armchair sat in front of a large fireplace. I glanced around, still a little distracted from thoughts of Ginny, and perplexed that Snape had been in love with someone else, with red hair, that wasn't my aunt Bella.

Pansy marched straight over to the Victorian style wardrobe and flung open the doors which creaked in protest. She drew out the yellow bell bottoms and we all stared at them in awe. "They're hideous," whispered Pansy, bewitched by the offending article.

"What's weirder," added Blaise looking at the label, "is that Snape was able to fit into a 36 inch pair."

We all tried to imagine what Snape looked like in the seventies, tiny waist, yellow trousers, and mysterious redhead on his arm.

"Okay," said Blaise, after a few moments. "What exactly are we looking for? Blackmail material?" Pansy and I nodded. "Right, let's get started."

Looking for blackmail material is always difficult, especially when you don't want anyone to realize you've been there. I checked the obvious places, thanking Merlin that Snape was a tidy person, albeit with a dislike of dusting. Looking under his bed, at the back of his wardrobe and in his drinks cabinet yielded no results. Pansy and Blaise checked the bathroom, and Pansy even checked the reverse of his bathroom mirror ("Because it's obvious he doesn't use it to look at his reflection," she sniffed.) Eventually I felt that I had to reveal my coup de grace, if this trip was going to be a success. I'd avoided looking here before, because I happened to keep several secret items in the same place, in my room, and now it would be revealed to Pansy and Blaise.

I walked over to his bureau, and picked up the picture of him standing with Dumbledore. It was a tiny picture, and the only one he had in the room, with Dumbledore beaming at the camera and photo Snape attempting to duck out of the frame. I unhooked the back and removed it, to reveal two small photos.

"Blaise, Pansy," I called, and they moved towards me, looking at the photos.

The first one was a picture of a much younger Snape, I'd say about my age, standing in the Hogwarts library. He was apparently unaware that the photo was being taken and hiding behind a row of books. He had a huge potions tome open in front on his face, but he wasn't reading it and kept peeking over the top at a pretty girl with red hair that was giggling with her friends. Every time she glanced in his direction, he quickly looked away and pretended to be engrossed in the book. Obviously this was the girl he was in love with. The photo was quite old, with nothing written on it, and the sides were bent, as though he had repeatedly made to tear it up, but stopped.

The second was taken in a Yule Ball, and was titled "Yule Ball 1976, 52/100," suggesting that many copies had been made. It seemed to be on a loop, the students were doing one of those dances where you repeatedly changed partner, the kind that most people hate because they don't like other people dancing with their date. It followed a young Snape, perhaps a year older than me, as he spun around with two girls, and then swapped with a dark haired young man to lead the red haired girl from before. They smiled secretly at each other. Evidently that was the part that he wanted to remember, as after they parted, it went back to the beginning. It also seemed to me that they had been having some sort of relationship, due to the glint in their eyes and the possessive hold Snape had on her waist.

Pansy and Blaise watched the whole thing, Blaise smirked at Snape's stalker-ish behavior, and Pansy cooed at the pretty dresses.

"Wow, I guess this is the girl he was in love with. She's pretty," I said, secretly thinking that she reminded me of Ginny.

"Just a second," said Blaise, looking closer at the ball scene. He got out his wand and pointed it at the photo, which froze. "The freezing charm only works for a few seconds, but

just there, look at that guy."

He'd frozen it just moments before Snape began dancing with his beloved, while he was still dancing with a curly haired blonde and she with a dark haired young man who Blaise was pointing to. I frowned, looking carefully at the man, although it was from a difficult angle.

"That looks like..." I trailed off, the resemblance between the man and Potter was undeniable.

"Then she's..." Pansy breathed, then we all froze as we heard speech on the other side of the door. I grabbed the photos and put them in the back of the photo frame before closing it, putting it back and following Pansy and Blaise to where they were hiding behind the door. We squeezed in tightly, and tried to breath as quietly as possible, scanning the room and breathing a sigh of relief that nothing appeared out of place.

The door swung open and Snape stepped through, shrugging off his outer cloak and walking towards his wardrobe to hang it up. We took the opportunity to exit, Pansy winked at the portrait and Blaise opened the first door. As soon as we were out, we silently shut the door and sprinted to the end of the corridor, pelting around the corner and collapsing against the wall, gasping for breath.

"Unbelievable," said Pansy.

"We should investigate teachers more often," Blaise said thoughtfully. "Who'd have thought Snape had a thing with Harry Potter's mother."

I remained silent, wondering why the look in Lily Potter's face had so reminded me of Ginny.

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From now on, I'm not going to be begging for reviews, because I know people are reading and enjoying it. That said, reviews really do help. Pour example, this chapter was the result of TinaMustDie saying something about Snape, and I was like "oh crud, I forgot to write about Snape" so I concocted this chapter with much Snape. I tend to forget what I've written about before, so little comments really help. Another example was that wHos rAb mentioned that Draco had been getting a bit soft, so next chapter you'll see him..well lets just say you probably wont be feeling so sorry for him :p Of course, this becomes quite problematic for me, because right now, I'm out at sea so to speak, I no longer have a clear plan of where the story's going, and I'm going to have to work hard to keep the crazy in. We don't want to turn it into a normal fic, now do we? 

I shall stop rambling now. Yes. Now. TOODLES!

P.S My favourite part of this chapter is when Draco pushes the cat statue. Has anyone ever done something like that??


	10. Chapter 10

Hey all, thanks vair much for all your reviews, and I'm not going to go on and on in this author note for once, so I'll just say that I'm nearly finished writing the story, I think I've written the next chapter, and a half, and I only anticipate one more chapter, plus the epilogue. I've gotta warn you guys, I'm loosing enthusiasm for the story, probably due to the amount of stress I'm under in real life, so the updates are going to get slower, but I _will_ finish it. Honest I will.

Disclaimer: Man I wish Big Brother was just a concept created by Orwell. Oh, and I own nothing.

There are some things in life that you can't do together without becoming closer, breaking and entering a teacher's private quarters and finding secret photographs of him and his Hogwarts Love is one of them. For the next few days, Pansy, Blaise and I spent a lot more time together actually doing things, instead of sitting around and looking haughty, which we all agreed was pretty passé. Blaise and I flew our broomsticks at top speeds around Hogwarts after hours while Pansy cheered us on and scored us for talent, flair and ability to look good on a broom. We stole some polyjuice potion from Professor Snape and turned into each other, which although an unpleasant experience of changing, turned out to be highly amusing in practice. We even snuck up to the astronomy tower and jinxed the students that were…_busy_ there, before Pansy and Blaise promptly took their place. That was probably the only drawback, they were now officially a couple, and seemed to have a making out quota which they had to stick by, which left me alone with my thoughts from time to time. Even so, for the first time that I could remember, I was properly enjoying my magic. Okay, so not the first time. That had been running around the school with Ginny, but it was definitely fun. And if my thoughts strayed to her more often than I was comfortable with? Well, I assumed that they would fade with time. After all, we'd only known each other a few months. She was crass and stupid and had ridiculous hair. It was only a matter of time, surely?

Snape hadn't said anything about our excursion into his private quarters, although I was fairly sure he'd known someone had been there, as the black knight wouldn't let us in again, even under threat. We supposed that Snape didn't want to persecute the culprits for fear of what they'd found and what they could say. As for the three of us, we were just happy to have not been caught, and spent a good few hours musing over how Snape had ended up involved with Lily Potter.

It was a little strange. I wasn't over Ginny, no where near, but my moping had changed into anger. Anger that everything she'd done: enticing me in and seeking me out had clearly meant nothing, and she'd dropped me now that her brother and his dopey friends were paying her the slightest bit of attention. They were always hanging out together now, it made me sick. On the other hand, I was proud of myself for putting it behind me, on the outside at least, and doing something else. I'd retaken my place as Draco Malfoy, practiced scowling and smirking until my expressions were perfect, and made several snide comments directed at Gryffindorks, Hufflepoofs and Ravenbores. I practiced Quidditch ferociously in preparation for the game against the Ravenclaw team on Saturday, and did all my homework to perfection so that I could laugh at anyone who didn't.

Pansy and Blaise seemed pleased, if wary at this change. They stepped up, replacing Crabbe and Goyle who were always happy to assist with heavy lifting, but started spending more time with Nott, and I think I saw them with their own plastic horses too. This was, I mused, the new face of Slytherin. Gone was the brute force and blundering indigence, leave that for the likes of Potter, Weasley and Granger. We were smooth, smart and scheming. I had to thank Ginny, because now when we did anything, the finger wasn't pointed at us, after all, Slytherins were humans too, weren't they? So when someone transfigured Lavender Brown's ornamental butterfly clip into a spider, which, after climbing all over her and causing hysterics somehow managed to be levitated to Weasley, no one suspected us. Likewise, when Padma Patil was sent a howler that screamed that it was a good thing she used so many cosmetic charms, no angry curses came in our direction. We didn't do conflicts, it was much easier to watch the havoc we created from the sidelines, at that point, our slates were clean, and we wanted to keep it that way.

>

>>My only preoccupation was girls. Now that Blaise and Pansy were together, they occasionally wanted private time, leaving me to practice Quidditch, but everything eventually becomes tiresome, even Quidditch. After a few days I felt as though I could have performed a sloth roll in my sleep and kept seeing the snitch in the corner of my eye. What I needed, was a girlfriend. Flirting was fine, switching from girl to girl, which was my usual custom, likewise. However, I was starting to want someone that I could be seen with, that would be to me what Pansy was to Blaise: pretty, clever, witty and Slytherin. After going through the possible candidates and becoming frustrated at the lack of them, I decided upon Daphne Greengrass. I'd never done more than flirt with her, but she was certainly pretty enough, with a cutting tongue and good taste. Daphne used to hang around with Pansy, and a gaggle of younger girls that idolized them. I couldn't particularly blame them. Pansy and Daphne were the archetypes for all Slytherin girls. Perfectly groomed, artfully dressed, figures that meant any other girls in the room took a hit for just sharing their breathing space, and sharp minds. Best of all, she was pureblood. The complete opposite of Ginny. Not that I was comparing.

The only reason that I'd looked her over before was that she was blonde, and I was concerned that our hair would clash. However recently she'd added strawberry highlights, which, along with her tasteful make up and confident manner, was enough to drive any boy crazy.

I began to plan.

About a month after I'd last spoken with Ginny, I was sitting next to Pansy and Blaise. Normally I sat between them to prevent them from becoming too physical, but this morning I had plans. It was breakfast, and I was enjoying some coffee, black of course. It was a treat I rarely afforded myself, because I didn't want to become dependant upon it, I didn't want to be dependant on anything. I held those who couldn't face the day without their coffee in disgust, for lowering themselves to that level, in the Wizarding World, it wasn't safe to be so helpless and so willing to do anything for a drink.

The three of us were discussing the three other house tables. The rest of the school was being swept by a trend of wearing their hair in impossible styles, sustained by holding charms and potions. Anyone in Slytherin who copied the trend immediately forfeited their right to not be hexed and lost all status that they had. Most people looked as though their heads were the size of dragon eggs, causing them to be completely disproportioned and looking as though they might fall over at any moment. A few of them had severely limited their movement by attempting overly dramatic coiffures. As Parvati Patil walked in, hair piled high above her head, giving her the look of someone wearing a beehive on their head, Pansy, Blaise and I exchanged smug looks, and raised eyebrows.

I put my coffee down, and picked up a croissant when I saw Daphne enter, followed by three third year Slytherins who hung on her every word. I was pleased to see that her hair was pulled tightly at the front, and then left in loose waves down her back. No beehives there. This was the last test, and she'd passed. Her lineage was perfect, as was her image, and her elitist attitude mimicked mine. As she walked down the table, to her regular spot a few chairs down from us, I spoke, raising my voice a little so that she could hear.

"Daphne, why don't you sit here?" I suggested in a smooth voice, nodding my head towards the empty chair opposite me. Pansy and Blaise looked up from their breakfast and raised their eyebrows at me, looking pleased at this twist. It was a good feeling, being able to understand each other without saying a word. They both realized my intentions and nodded their approval, before smiling up at Daphne, who smirked back, if a little warily, and sat down. Her lackeys stared at her for a moment, before she dismissed their with a hand and they scurried away, no doubt to watch her avidly.

She flicked her hair back, and reached for a peach, before glancing at the three of us that were watching her.

"I've been meaning to say, congratulations, Pansy, Blaise," she said coolly, playing on her strengths. She knew Pansy well, after all, if distantly.

"Thanks. And I adore the way you're wearing your hair, very chic," answered Pansy, referring to the fact that she wasn't following the mindless trend.

The four of us shared a smile, and I knew at that point that this would all go well.

"So, Draco, is it true that you broke into Snape's private quarters?" She asked, aware that the real reason she was here was to talk to me, not merely socialize. She took a dainty bite of her peach and leaned across the table. That girl certainly understood the power of eye contact. She'd fit in perfectly.

By the end of breakfast, the four of us were stuck together like glue. We all had potions next, and so stood up to leave, Daphne idly commenting that Parvati Patil looked as though she had a beehive on her head. It felt as though we should have teamed up years ago, she complimented the group wonderfully, and we turned more heads than usual as we sauntered out of the great hall and towards the staircase. The topic of conversation drifted to a discussion as to which was worse, Gryffindors or Hufflepuffs. I said Gryffindors, their misplaced courage and naivety was sickening, considering that Hufflepuffs were brainlessly loyal and a well placed favor could earn you their eternal gratitude. Daphne said Hufflepuffs, because you could at least get some entertainment out of Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs had never had an original thought in their entire history.

We were about to start on the staircase when a voice called out behind us.

"Wait, Draco!" I felt a jab of anger as I recognized Ginny's voice, and spun on heel, waving my friends on ahead, before stalking towards the red haired girl.

"What did you call me Weasley?" I demanded. How could she act like we were still friends, that she knew me and cared and that everything was the same after what she'd done? Just left me? I was okay to pass time, and hang around with on a whim, but as soon as someone else sniffed in her direction she was gone. So fickle and cruel. I loomed over her, using my extra height to my advantage and she cowered back.

"Look, Dr-, look. I just want to explain-" I cut her off.

"There's nothing to explain, you made your decision," I hissed, noting a small crowd was forming.

"But you don't-"

"You seem to be under the impression that I care. You're mistaken. I am not slightly interested in what a gauche, hideous, and most likely crazy blood traitor like you has to say." I shocked myself with my ferocity.

"How can you say that?" Hurt laced her features, I realized that I had caused it but couldn't bring myself to stop, all this time the anger and bitterness had been bubbling inside of me, and now they were bursting out.

"Say what? That you're gauche? You're a Weasley, what do you expect? Hideous? Anyone who looks at you can see as much. And crazy? Well who else would run around graffiti-ing portraits, or knit owl cardigans, or campaign for a house full of people that despise you?"

A murmur went round as everyone realized that Ginny had been behind the strange occurrences at Hogwarts, and as her cheeks reddened, I felt a stab of guilt. The feeling was replaced by anger swiftly, as Potter, Weasley and Granger materialized, not looked the least bit shocked, evidently she'd divulged all her secrets to them.

"You don't mean that," Ginny whispered, as the golden trio stepped between us protectively, blocking her from view.

"Oh please, if you only ever believe one word of a Slytherin, believe that I mean everything I've said here, you made your choice, live with it," I added in a hiss, before turning and joining my friends half way up the staircase, who were glaring down at the students below. I didn't look back, but felt an awful turning in my stomach and was struck by an urge to get as far away as possible.

"What was that?" Pansy asked quietly.

"Nothing."

_Nothing.  
_

* * *

_  
_Oh _burn._

I'm guessing y'all don't feel so sorry for Draco now, yes? Review if you've something to say. and I _do_ incorporate what you say.


	11. Chapter 11

Hi All, Here's chapter eleven, we're coming towards the end! SHOCK SHOCK HORROR HORROR. You've got a couple more chapters to go..speaking of, I should really start writing those...soon...sometime...maybe later. Again, this was beta'd by my beta! Who is wonderful, and betas my stuff even when I shoot three chapters at her in the space of two days. 

Disclaimer: I own nothing but GLASS BEADS

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"I suppose you think your little spectacle outside the Great Hall was funny?"

So that was what this was about.

I was standing in the potions room, having been held back after class finished. Professor Snape had made a big show of grading papers and looking through his work before finally speaking, so I had surmised that this wasn't a social call. That was annoying, because they were serving pumpkin seed soup for dinner this evening and I'd hoped to dine at Chez Snape. Clearly, that wasn't to be. I glanced over his desk, strewn with paper, quills, ink and two bottles of pickled newts eyes that I swear were looking at me.

"Well?" He asked, glaring at me.

"It's not on my list of funniest moments of all time, but it was certainly amusing," I drawled lazily.

Wrong answer.

He fixed me with an onyx eye and stood up to move one of the jars towards his work bench. The eyes in the other jar continued to look at me. I scowled at them.

"So embarrassing Ginny Weasley in front of the whole school amuses you?" His tone was casual, but I knew that it was misleading.

"The whole school wasn't there," I said, stalling for time.

"Word travels, I'd be surprised if a single student in Hogwarts doesn't know that she's the one who's been executing the strange... things… around the school. Not to mention the campaign for Slytherins, which I see you're taking advantage of."

"I feel it's my duty, sir." I added the sir to score points, and try to win him around. It wasn't really working.

"Indeed." He returned to his desk and faced me. "I was under the impression that you and Miss Weasley were... friends." Trust him to play something underhanded and deceitful like that, the guilt card. As though I wasn't feeling bad enough.

"Hardly, I'd say acquaintances is more fitting. And through mere coincidence."

"I doubt she'll want to remain your… acquaintance after you so publicly humiliated her and betrayed her confidence."

"I made her no promises. And she didn't wish to remain my acquaintance before that."

"Really?" He raised a dark eyebrow. Where did he get off judging me? He had been madly in love with Harry Potter's mother! "I heard that she was trying to speak to you, that she approached you."

"Obviously, as though I'd seek out a Weasley."

"Because you've never done that before," he muttered dryly.

"Can you just let this go?" I said, it was my life, I could do what I wanted.

"Can you?"

"The bottom line is she left, she made her choice and it wasn't me, and yeah, I do care, because I liked her, but obviously she doesn't feel the same, and that's all there is to it."

"And you're just going to leave it like that?"

"Yeah, I am. It wouldn't have worked out anyway, we're different people," I said, walking out.

After I left Snape, I had Transfiguration, which was made worse by the fact that it was shared with the Gryffindors. Professor McGonagall docked points because I was in late. I tried to explain that I'd been with Professor Snape, but too many Slytherins had used that excuse and it didn't really hold true with her, which was fantastic for my already abysmal mood.

To make everything worse, Pansy and Blaise had ditched, leaving me on my own, since Daphne didn't take transfiguration, so I was left to my angry musings.

I scowled at the Golden Trio for the whole of the lesson, even when I was supposed to be transfiguring my beetle into a butterfly, because goodness knows why anyone would want to transfigure a beetle into a butterfly, so in my book the entire lesson was wasted. The most annoying thing was that they kept staring at me. Weasley kept shooting me evil looks, Granger kept glancing over to me as though I was a specimen or something, and Potter kept looking at me in a confused way. I sneered back each time, but it didn't seem to deter them in the slightest. I supposed that Ginny had told them all about me, and felt conflicted between anger and guilt.

The truth of the matter was that I was feeling pretty bad about everything. Public humiliation wasn't at all pleasant, and I could have been more tactful. Perhaps I should have just ignored her, but there was something about her voice that I couldn't help but retaliate against. Even so, I wasn't proud of intimidating a little girl. But she couldn't have expected anything more. What did she think? I was going to call it water under the bridge and go back to chasing her around like a simpleton?

I left transfiguration in a hurry, just in case one of the Gryffindors took it into their heads to try and speak to me, and headed for the Slytherin Common Room. As I'd assumed Pansy and Blaise were there sitting, entwined on a leather sofa. They nodded at me as I entered, and I collapsed into an armchair, throwing my bag on the side.

"You two could let me know when you're planning to skip class. I had to endure an hour of McGonagall droning on about how I needed to hold my wand more loosely if I wanted my beetle to change into a butterfly. All I could get the damn thing to do was sprout wings."

"Sorry mate," said Blaise, looking sympathetic, "We thought Snape was getting you out of it so there didn't seem much point in being there."

I nodded at their explanation and tipped my head back, looking at the highly domed ceiling. Everything was a mess. Snape was giving me relationship advice, even though he'd been in love with Lily Evans turned Potter, I was feeling ridiculously guilty about hurting a Gryffindor's feelings, even though it was completely justified, (not to mention, since when did I care about hurting people's feelings? No blood no foul, right? If the blood could be hidden, still no foul), and the Golden Trio kept giving me calculating looks which were liking to culminate in an attempt to rearrange my face. I could do without all of it. Particularly the face thing, I like my face the way it is.

The point was, that I needed to take more control, I needed some sort of grip on my life.

"Where's Daphne?" I asked abruptly.

"She's upstairs, powdering her nose," answered Pansy. She and Blaise were looking at me a little warily. I ignored it and ploughed on.

"I'm going to ask her to Hogsmeade with me this weekend," I said confidently, leaning back in my chair. After a few moments, when there was no instant congratulations and slaps on the back, I glanced at the two of them, who seemed rather nervous all of a sudden.

"What?" I asked, looking from Pansy to Blaise. "Don't you think I should?"

Pansy took a deep breath.

"It's just that… Draco… do you even like Daphne?"

I glanced at her. Was this a joke? Who wouldn't like Daphne? She was gorgeous, intelligent, and charming. It would be like saying you didn't enjoy fine wine. I looked at Blaise, expecting to see a "I-don't-know-what-she's-on" sort of look, but he seemed to be agreeing.

"Of course I like Daphne… have you seen Daphne?" I asked, not quite sure what was going on here. Pansy and Blaise exchanged a nervous look. This was starting to annoy me, was there some sort of conspiracy going on?

"Well yes, she's beautiful and well groomed and witty, but do you actually like her? I mean, really like her?"

"What's not to like?" I said, trying to get them to the point.

"That's not quite it," said Blaise, speaking finally. "I mean, there's liking steak, and Bordeaux and Christmas, but it's different from liking girls. And you seem to like Daphne in the way that you like steak, Bordeaux and Christmas."

I was baffled.

"What we're trying to say... is that it's pretty obvious that there's someone else, and you're looking to Daphne for distraction. Which is fine of course, obviously it's fine, you can do whatever you want," rambled Pansy. Which was odd, because she rarely rambled.

"What we're trying to say mate, is that you need to know what you want, before you go getting it," said Blaise.

How did they know all this? Were they psychic? Or Legillmens? Was I so transparent that they'd seen and understood thoughts and feelings that I had yet to accept on a conscious level? Well yeah. It sort of seemed that way.

"I have to go," I said, standing up and walking out.

"I hope we didn't upset him," I heard Pansy say as I left the room.

At this point, it seemed my day wouldn't get any weirder, but I was wrong. As soon as I left the Common Room, I became aware that something else was going on. To begin with, I saw "Save the Slytherins" painted across a wall in blue. For a moment, I thought that Ginny had recommenced her activities, but then I remembered that she only used pink paint. I wandered along the hallway and down a few staircases, choosing my path arbitrarily, and came across three Ravenclaws that had enchanted themselves to be weightless and were drifting around the corridor, bouncing from wall to wall. One of them was doing back stroke. They waved at me. They actually waved at me, and they smiled.

I turned and ran.

When I slowed down, safely away from the crazy (or so I thought), I found myself outside, but there was no sanctuary that I had hoped for. There were about a hundred first, second, and third years playing some sort of chasing game. They weren't on broomsticks. They were running after each other, and apparently having a wild time.

And that was when it hit me. Snape had been wrong. I hadn't publicly humiliated Ginny. I'd publicized her. Everyone was jumping on the insane bandwagon and being...well… insane. Looney Lovegood was probably having a field day. And I bet Ginny was lapping it up too. A small part of my brain suggested that this was unlikely, since Ginny had always been semi-secretive about her extra curricular pursuits, but the dominant remainder of my brain politely asked it to shut up.

All around me, students were thoroughly enjoying themselves, enjoying their magic. It was like they'd been liberated or something. I knew the feeling, and although a part of me reveled in bringing this about, and felt proud to have shared in it's original source, I wished that Ginny and I were still friends to see it. I dimly wondered if she was in the Gryffindor Common Room and if she'd seen this strange chaos.

The whole thing was a bit much for me, so I took a deep breath and turned away from the revelry to go back inside, maybe peruse Quidditch Through the Ages again, at least I'd have some peace and quiet in the library, when I bumped into my three favorite people. Oh yes, Potter, Weasley and Granger.

"Are you stalking me? People will talk," I quipped, before making to walk past them while deliberately shoving the lummox. However, it wasn't to be, as they clearly had anticipated this, and took a step back to accommodate me. First time in their collective entire lives. Oh well, if there was any day for the world to go pear shaped, this was it.

"Malfoy, we want to talk to you," said Granger, taking a deep breath. I wanted to cut her off with a snide comment, but I'd had a draining day (even though it was only lunchtime), and I came up blank. I settled for a bored look instead, as though I had resigned myself to listening to whatever she had to say, in the hopes of getting away from her as soon as possible.

"About Ginny," added Potter. I started paying attention, although I'm loath to admit it.

"We think it was completely rotten, insulting her in the great hall, although it wasn't surprising, given your track record," said the red headed boy, scowling at me. How exactly was this related to Ginny?

"But that turned out okay, so we're willing to call it quits," said The-Boy-Who-Seems-to-Live-More-Than-The-Rest-Of-Us.

"If you talk to her," finished Granger. The way they spoke was so infuriating. It was like they shared a brain instead of three. Although I'd always suspected as much. Could they not all finish a coherent thought? They needed someone else to continue it for them? And- wait, what was that about Ginny?

"You want me to talk to her?" I asked, dumbfounded. Hopefully I didn't look dumbfounded.

"Yes-" started Potter, but he was interrupted by his freckled friend.

"We want you to apologize to her. She's been moping for the last week and all we can get out of her is something to do with you, then she plucks up the courage to speak to you, and you shoot her down!"

Apologize? Moping? Me? Shooting?? There had been no shooting. Some cutting insults, and saber toothed comments, but definitely no shooting.

"I'll consider it," I said, finally before sweeping past them and heading somewhere[ianywhere[/i, while wondering how it had all come to this.

* * *

ooh, so some Draco Trio interaction. To everyone who is still "GINNY WHAT IS YOUR DEAL?" I'm going to explain..but I'm starting to wonder if I should make up a bigger deal, or you'll all still hate her :p I just want Draco to get more of an even footing with her, because in the earlier chapters it's all about Ginny, I think it'd be good if she's a little in his debt. As to wanting Draco to be nastier to her, do you WANT the story to have a happy ending:p 'Cause the whole thing would get so long if Draco did something meaner, and then Ginny would ignore him, and then he'd have to make it up to her, or something, and he would be in the wrong again. Okay, I'm babbling. Thanks for your reviews, especially TinaMustDie, Valentine's Riddle, Snow Empress, Gwynevere and WhosRab. It's also great to see new people reading the fic. And wouldn't it be awesome to get it up to a hundred reviews before the end?


	12. Chapter 12

Hullohullo! Sorry that the last chapter was a bit of a bore, hopefully you'll enjoy this. And dang, I've got to write the rest of this story...I will..later...Please review and let me know what you think should happen, so I can please as many of you as possible. Do enjoy!

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the cherry pie I'm sitting in.

"Run it past me again?"

"We're going to flood Filch's office," repeated Pansy.

Huh…. I hadn't heard wrong after all. And yet I still didn't understand.

"With cranberry juice," added Blaise in was I'm sure he thought was a helpful manner. I still didn't understand.

"I'm coming too," said Daphne, with a cute smile. It was cute, in a bunny sort of way. Not that I think bunnies are cute, but my point is that it made me think about what Pansy and Blaise had said the previous day, about me liking Daphne in the same way that I like steak, Bordeaux and Christmas. Not in the way I liked Ginny. Yeah, my little talk with Snape had made me face up to the fact that I did like her, which was awful, because after what I'd done to her, I'd be surprised if she wanted to look at me.

But back to the situation at hand.

"Cranberry juice?" I asked Blaise, seizing the only part of the plan that I could grasp so far.

"We only have cranberry and pumpkin and I figured-"

"Yes, okay, yes, cranberry, no pumpkin, but I'm not sure I'm getting the bigger picture. We're going to flood Filch's office with cranberry juice?"

"Exactly," said Daphne, beaming at me.

"Draco, the thing is," said Pansy softly, stepping forward and looking at me nervously. "We know that there's something going on with you, and if you don't want to talk about it, that's fine, but we're your friends, and we want to help." I wasn't sure what to say to that. Luckily Blaise stepped in. Sometimes Pansy could be too open with her emotions. I mean, in front of me. And Blaise. She was a cold bitch to everyone else.

"So we're going to go and have some fun, and divert you from your preoccupations."

"And we're not taking no for an answer," finished Daphne.

I glanced at my three friends and tried to think of a plausible excuse. They looked pretty determined. I hate it when they get like that. There is nothing worse than someone who is trying to do something for your own good. But on the other hand, I had been feeling pretty down and they'd gone to all this trouble. Not to mention that I needed the distraction. I needed to move on from Ginny, and since I hadn't been able to move onto Daphne, I might as well try this little venture to get my mind off...other things.

I was deliberating between saying that I was horribly sick and allergic to juice and that it was a terrible faux pas to flood the office of a caretaker, when an owl hit me in the head. I wondered how an owl managed to get into the dungeons, before grabbing the letter it carried and shooing it away. I was just about to unroll it when Pansy snatched the parchment out of my hands.

"Uh uh, not now. Right now we're going, and that's that," she said. I snatched it back, but just shoved the letter in my pocket and off we went.

"So why are we going to Filch's office?" I asked, as we walked. It was just before dinner time and the hallways were sort of busy, so I kept my voice down as I spoke. The four of us were trying to be inconspicuous, but it was difficult, what with us all being so astoundingly good looking.

"Can you think of anywhere better to flood? This way, we only piss Filch off, and everyone hates him. Not to mention, flooding? Definitely the most fun way to destroy an office," answered Daphne, with a satisfied smirk. Her logic was undeniable, I was really starting to like that girl. Actually like her, not just like having her on show.

It seemed that the crazy fever still held Hogwarts. The halls looked as though they had been the scene of an all night rave, with balloons everywhere, fireworks constantly fizzing around and the odd student collapsing from exhaustion in an alcove. Filch was on red alert to any new goings on that would need cleaning up, which we would, of course, use to our advantage.

"Say guys," began Blaise as we turned a corner into a less populated part of the school, leading to Filch's office. "Pulp or smooth?" He held up two bottles of red juice and shook them, one cloudy, one clear.

"Smooth is faster flowing, but pulp'll do more damage," analyzed Pansy.

"I'd say three parts pulp, one part smooth," I advised. We continued walking when Blaise suddenly came to a halt and signaled for us all to do the same.

"Draco, do you know how recreate that oozing charm we saw at Zonko's once?"

"Are the Malfoy's pureblood?" I replied, whipping out my wand and muttering an incantation at the nearest wall.

"Get the floor behind us too, that'll make more of a problem" suggested Daphne, I nodded and complied. Pretty soon the floor and wall looked as though they were melting, and there was a foul smelling rolling off it. Perfect. Filch'd be busy with it for hours.

We carried on, and lo and behold, only a few minutes passed before Filch rushed past us in the direction we'd come, muttering something about "rotten, good for nothing, should be taught a lesson with corporal punishment students." I recollected the summer in my fourth year when Blaise and I spent every day purchasing a new product from Zonko's and then spending the rest of the day trying to figure out the precise spell to replicate it's effects. It had all been for fun, but we'd been reaping the benefits of having a myriad of pranking spells at our disposal ever since.

"Daphne's taking the just friends thing pretty well, isn't she?" I whispered to Blaise, as we walked a little way behind the two girls. I'd been worried about hurting Daphne, as I genuinely liked her, and I was happy to see that she hadn't disappeared after I failed to ask her out.

"I think she's relieved, to be honest mate," said Blaise. I looked at him quizzically. "Your girlfriends tend to have a shelf life."

"Can't argue that," I said, with a shrug. A part of my mind wondered if the same thought would apply were Ginny my girlfriend, the idea less foreign in my mind than I was comfortable with. I banished it away and concentrated on what we were doing.

We finally reached Filch's office, a dingy affair shoved away in a damp and cobwebby corner. For a caretaker, he didn't take much care of his own office. Then again, what did a caretaker need an office for anyway? To keep his buckets? Speaking of, why did we have a caretaker either, and if we needed one, why did we have one that couldn't do magic? Perhaps he was kept around for the comic relief. I don't mean that he's funny, I mean that it's fun to laugh at him. Obviously.

"Stand clear, this is a delicate situation," said Blaise, waving us back imperiously. God that guy puts on airs sometimes. But you know, he does know what he's doing, so we moved back while he made some complex motions with his wand. Then, with great aplomb, he tried the handle. Nothing happened. He pulled again. The door creaked slightly, but didn't move at all.

"Umm, Blaise, sweet heart, Filch is a squib," said Pansy, biting her lip.

"Oh yeah. Right," said Blaise, shoving his wand away and kneeling down by the door. "Do either of you have hair pins?" He asked the girls.

"Uh no, all our styles are held up by magic alone," said Daphne, with a derisive sniff, Pansy nodded in agreement. "Uh, I have," I muttered, removing it from my hair.

"You use hair pins?" Asked Pansy, nonplussed.

"If I don't my fringe flops down," I retorted angrily, handing the pin to Blaise and crossing my arms over my chest while glaring at my friends.

"And he said I was gay," murmured Blaise, but shut up when I gave him a patented evil look.

After a few minutes tinkering with the mechanism, Blaise tried the handle again, and it creaked open, revealing a small, damp room, with peeling brown wallpaper and an impressive filling cabinet in the corner which Blaise immediately made a beeline to. I headed towards a box labeled "Confiscated Items," while Pansy and Daphne set up a collapsible cauldron in the middle of the desk, brushing the papers stood on it away with the carelessness that belonged to the rich and young. While Blaise riffled through the files, occasionally emitting low whistles or satisfied chuckles when he came upon some bonafide black mail material (we seemed to be amassing quite a lot of it these days) the girls emptied their satchels of some potions ingredients, the usual items, unicorn hair, boomslang, newt's eyes, snooziberries and a handful of others. All the components of a replicating potion.

Out of the confiscated items box came a small foe glass, enough dung bombs for four life times and still be buried with half a dozen,(you never knew when you needed to be crude,) a necklace that made me go transparent when I put it on and a model snake that moved hypnotically and made me feel very sleepy. I stashed them all in Pansy's now empty satchel, after all, they were bound to come in useful, before moving on to join Blaise.

"These things go back for ages," he said, rifling through them. "I've already got rid of our records, naturally inserting our misdemeanors into the file of an unfortunate Gryffindork, but look. There's pages of James Potter and Sirius Black, even that Lupin guy that taught us in third year. Then there's your father, my father, Pansy's parents and Snape!"

I grabbed the proffered file and scanned the pages.

"This is rubbish, there's practically nothing in here, except something vague about tangling with the Whomping Willow in his sixth year, I guess he didn't do anything wrong."

"Or he didn't get caught."

"Let's hope the same applies for us," I said, dumping the pile and joining the girls at the table. The mixture in the cauldron was a pale green color, lighter than the expected shade, because we hadn't added any flobberworms. The flobberworms were critical, because they determined when the potion stopped replicating. However, that didn't apply for us.

Blaise joined us, mixing the cranberry juice, three parts pulp, one part smooth, in a glass vial.

"Okay, I've opened all the drawers of the filing cabinet so all the records should be obliterated. The idea is, we add the juice and then get the heck out of dodge, because once this stuff starts replicating, it'll replicate the juice it's replicated, so we're going to get the heck out of dodge. Else we'll be riding the cranberry wave," he said, and we all nodded.

With necessary drama, Blaise added the juice before tipping the whole concoction into one of Filch's desk drawers, where it immediately started to swell out and onto the floor behind the desk. Pansy collapsed the empty cauldron while Daphne vanished anything that might indicate our being here. We were just about to make a speedy exit, the juice now having spread out from behind the desk and increasing at a scary rate. I was just starting to think that maybe this hadn't been such a good idea, while at the same time admiring the sheer volume of damage it would do.

"Argus, are you up for some firewhiskey? Longbottom just blew up the dungeons again and I'm not going through the rest of the day sobe-" The person we least wanted to see, not that anyone would have been welcome at that point, walked in, black robes swirling around him.

Professor Snape stopped short and stared at us, dropping the bottle of firewhiskey which smashed on the floor. We tried our best not to look guilty. I'm not sure if we just failed, or if it was more attributed to the cranberry juice now covering the floor several centimeters. A little known fact is that alcohol turns most potions into useless fluid, but causing very few to take immediate, rapid and dramatic effect.

Guess what the firewhiskey from Snape's smashed bottle did to the replicating potion?

Snape just managed a "what are yo-" before all five of us were swept from the room by a huge wave of cranberry juice, three parts pulp that stuck in our hair, our clothes and our mouths, and one part smooth which caused it to flow faster.

It was a sticky, sweet, pulpy ride, which ended after many sticky, sweet, pulpy moments, in which I repeatedly found myself under juice and swallowing large amounts of juice. We all resurfaced outside, along with about two dozen other students that had been swept along with us. The juice might have gone on replicating itself, but the second we could stand up, Professor Snape took a deep breath and vanished the whole lot. Leaving us all sticky and gross and with that tart after taste in our mouths that you get after you've drunk cranberry juice.

Professor Snape turned to us, flipped a lock of wet hair out of his face and fixed us with an onyx glare.

"My office. Now." He turned and began to walk, making a sucking noise with every step. We trudged behind him. As we walked, we passed numerous students that were picking themselves up after the wave. I mentally went through a list of excuses in my head but I couldn't think of anything that I could possibly say that would clear our names in this after being caught at the scene of the crime seconds after the initial crime had been committed. I considered arguing that it was really his fault, for dropping the firewhiskey, but my sense of self preservation was too big to venture this suggestion.

We arrived at his office, and he stood behind his desk, glaring at us as we trooped in. Pansy wrung some juice out of her skirt, Blaise's hair clung to his neck. I was terrified my hair was pink.

"Explain yourselves," he hissed.

I glanced at the other three who had their innocent faces on, but none of which looked as though they were about to save us. So it was up to me. And I'm not proud of what I did, but I saw no other solution.

"Well, sir, it's like this. Pansy wanted to go shopping," Pansy shot me a confused look, "for clothes, she particularly wanted something yellow, something nineteen seventies," I hurried on.

"How is this relevant?" Demanded Snape. Obviously I needed to raise my game.

"You see, after we bought the yellow bell bottoms we put them at the back of Pansy's wardrobe," I glanced at him again, to see he was giving me an inscrutable look. I had no choice but to play my best card. "And then we saw Potter, who looks just like his mother," I said quickly.

"If only he had red hair," added Daphne, cottoning on. "It's a beautiful colour, don't you think, professor?"

"But see, he was looking for a photo," I continued, a quick glance at Snape showed his face had paled more than usual.

"We thought Filch might have one, or maybe a professor?" Suggested Blaise, with a sly grin.

"So that's why we were here. We were hoping to find something from, oh I don't know, maybe a school ball? In 1976," I finished. Professor Snape looked the most uncomfortable that I'd ever seen him. As we watched, feeling very satisfied with ourselves, he cleared his throat.

"Well, obviously you four had nothing to do with the whole debacle, and you should return to… whatever it was you were doing. As to Potter's mother, I think you'll find that even if such a photo existed, it would be fruitless to search for it's whereabouts. You may go," he finished stiffly. I flashed him a grateful smile, and we left, triumphant.

As we sauntered away feeling relieved and infinitely pleased with ourselves, I shoved my hands in my pockets, a habit I'd picked up some months ago, and felt paper. I suddenly remember the owl I'd received that morning and pulled it out, smoothing out the creases and opening it.

Mr. Malfoy,

Your academic progress meeting has been scheduled for today, at 4 o'clock, in room 158.

Professor Snape

I skimmed over the note, and then reread it twice. Two things, firstly, I'd just seen Snape and he'd mentioned nothing of the like. That said, he had been a little confused. Secondly, why hadn't he scheduled the meeting in his office or the potions room?

"Have any of you had an "academic progress meeting?" I asked, cutting into the conversation of how many times we would need to scourigify before we stopped smelling like cranberries. The other three glanced at the note and passed it around themselves.

"You must be the first," offered Blaise with a shrug.

"And you'd better get going, it's nearly four," added Pansy. Daphne said nothing but flashed the other two an inscrutable look. I wondered at my friends behavior, but made nothing of it.

"Later then," I said, before heading off down a staircase, and wondering if I was imagining their gazes on me.

P.S. I might incorporate thoughts and views into the final chapter if you tell me what they are...Thanks to everyone who reviewed, they really make my day.


	13. Interlude

Hey everyone, firstly THIS IS NOT AN UPDATE. So sorry, don't like to do that to you, but there we have it. Basically, I am writing the next chapter, and having LES ISSUES, because I do not know how to end it. I could end the story there, but to be honest, I don't think Ginny's excuse is that great, I don't think Draco would buy it, and I don't think they'd be reconciled. However, if I were to continue it, perhaps adding plot, there's every chance (as there has been since chapter three) that I could loose all interest and the story not be finished. If that happend, I'd probably post this chapter again, with the alternate ending, but I'm just not sure what you guys want. So yeah, if you know, review and tell me, or pm me, or email me or whatever. Also, never shake a baby. Okay, that was random :) Enough of the crazy, let me know!

AND OMG DEATHLY HALLOWS! Was totally all we talked about in school today. I'm getting it tomorrow at midnight, and I'm wearing a teeshirt that says "Hermione Dies, Maybe." I hope I don't get mobbed!


	14. Chapter 14

Hey hey everyone. Thanks for everyone who left feedback for me about what they thought I should do. This is sort of the last chapter, it snuck up on us after all! I'll either write an epilogue, or start a sequel to it, but I want to leave it like this, because I feel that it's an ending, perhaps not the final one, but it's an ending.

Today, I saw the film, and at this point, there are seven more hours until I get the book! I'm going to wear a teeshirt that says "hermione dies" even though I'm fairly sure she doesn't, my Slytherin scarf and a badge with the Hogwarts crest. Am I too cool? I should also take some eyeliner so we can all get scar-tastic.

Enjoy!

* * *

"Owww!"

"Who's there?"

"Who's that!"

"You's standing on my foot!"

Confused?? Yeah, so was I. The reasons I've started there is so that you can feel as confused as I felt. But let's back up a bit.

So there I was walking down the corridor on my way to room 158.

I like to think I'm pretty smart. Okay, yes, I've never beaten Granger in a test, I didn't realise Blaise wasn't a girl, and I wasn't aware until faced with irrefutable evidence on the contrary that Snape wasn't in love with my Aunt Bella. But yeah, I still think I'm pretty smart.

Being the pretty smart being that I am- hey, get it, pretty smart, pretty, and smart? Not that I'm pretty, but you have to admit that I'm nice to look at- I smelt a rat. Not literally. Obviously. Why would anyone want to do that? Or think about doing it? Who the hell even made up that metaphor.

The first thing that alerted me to the fact that something was up, was that room 158 was a broom cupboard. At that point I realised that coupled with the fact that no one else had heard about an academic progress meeting, nor had Snape mentioned it, this situation was looking very suspicious.

I'd walked up to room 156, which was a perfectly respectable classroom, and then found that where room 158 ought to be, there was a blank wall. Well, blank except for a piece of paper which said:

"Room 158 has been temporarily relocated! Please use room opposite!"

I turned to the room opposite and saw a narrow wooden door, on which another piece of parchment was stuck, proclaiming it to be room 158.

I was suspicious. Firstly because notices weren't usually written in pink. Nor did they use so many question marks. But there didn't seem anything for it except to go into the broom cupboard and see what exactly was going on here.

So I did.

The first thing that I noticed was that it was dark. And by dark, I mean pitch. I couldn't see a thing. The door had swung closed behind me and left me fumbling in the dark. I grabbed for my wand and was about to mutter a lumos and check out my surroundings when something ran into me and I dropped my wand. I'm not too pleased with that actually. I mean, what kind of wizard gets attacked and drops his wand? Not a very good one.

So yeah, which brings us back to where we started. I attempted to grab my wand from the floor, which was harder than it ever had been, courtesy of the darkness, and instead of picking it up in one swift moment, I ended up crawling around and feeling for it, all the time aware that whatever the hell was in the closet would attack me. I would have just up and run, but I could hardly leave without my wand. That, and I wasn't sure where the door was. I crawled forward a little tenatively, and bumped into something with my head, while finding my wand with my left hand. I jumped up and heard the something speak.

"Owww!" The voice was very familiar, but I couldn't quite place it.

"Who's there?"

"Who's that?" She asked. I was sure it was a girl now. She moved. I winced.

"You're standing on my foot!"

"Oh gosh sorry!"

"Am I being kidnapped? Are you going to kill me and sell my hair as knock off unicorn tail hair?" I've no idea where these random ideas come from. The whole thing was getting ridiculous, so I waved my wand and muttered a lumos. I was greeted with a strange sight.

The broom cupboard was full of brooms and dust and cobwebs and probably spiders. It was very small and very dingy and Ginny was standing right in front of me, with a leaf in her hair. No idea how it got there.

"Ginny."

"That's not your name."

"No, it's yours."

For a second, we smiled at each other, reminiscing the conversation from so long ago. When we were just starting out, in the time that I somehow, through smiles and shared laughter had given her the power to hurt me. I remembered this, suddenly, and stopped smiling.

She was looking at me with big, moist eyes, she looked different, older in a way. She wasn't wearing her crazy smile, but this sort of hopeful twisted one, and I couldn't bear to look at her.

I turned to leave, blinking for a second before the light caught the door handle and I reached for it.

But she was faster.

A murmured spell was out of her mouth and wrapped around the door in a matter of seconds, and when it had disappeared, and I turned the handle, I half expected it to be stuck.

"Open it," I said quietly, in a tight, controlled voice.

"No," She said, matching my volume. "Not until you-"

"OPEN IT NOW," I was frightened by my own ferocity, but now I'd started, I couldn't stop. What was it about her that made me pour everything out?

"You can't have it both ways Ginny, you can't leave me and then expect me to want to jump up and follow you again. I'm not a pet, I'm not some idiot who'll follow you around!" I thought I had forgiven her, but it seemed that I was far from it.

"I know, I get it, I'm sorry, I just want-"

"What? You want me to say that it's okay, and go back to being your sometimes best friend? The guy who'll drop everything to come pick flowers or paint hedgehogs or whatever crazy scheme you come up with next? Because I'm not that guy. As much fun as it must be for you to know that I'll come running, I'm through with it. I'm through with you, and if you don't open the door right this second, I'm no longer responsible for my actions."

A beat.

"Then I guess we have a problem. Because I'm not opening the doors until you hear me out."

I clenched my jaw and glared, but she glared stubbornly back.

"Talk then, I can wait," I said flippantly, leaning against the wall and facing her. She seemed a little disconcerted by my sudden co opperation, but nevertheless took a deep breath and began to speak.

"You walk past the same corridor every wednesday night on rounds."

"What?" I asked. I hadn't intended to speak during her apology or confession or whatever it was, but she'd caught me offguard.

"You, every wednesday, you take the same route. You walk past the same corridor every wednesday. And you also take the same route to Snape's office when lunch has anything to do with pumpkin. And when your mother writes to you, you reply the next morning before class."

I stared. I knew it was rude and I did it all the same.

"I know all these things," she continued, shaking her head, a wistful expression on her face. "I know all of these things because I've been watching you. The first night, I knew that you'd walk down that corridor, I knew you'd meet me. And then again the next time, and in the owlery. I purposefully sought you out, it wasn't an accident."

"So what you're trying to tell me," I said, my face twisting into a scowl as the meaning of her words caught up with me, "is that everything that happened between us was orchestrated by you? That you planned it all, that it's all some stupid game to you?" I was shaking with rage, another moment and I would try to break the door down.

"No!" She cried, hurt lacing her features, hurt that I realised was caused by my thinking so low of her.

"What then?" I asked, throwing the words at her.

"The thing you have to realise, is I was lonely," her tone softened, and the volume of it dropped. "I've never had proper friends, I didn't make them in my first year, like everyone else." A wry smile flitted across her face. I said nothing, just stared at her, trying to see the truth behind her words.

"After a while I stopped trying to integrate, and I just kept to myself, but it was boring. So I started going out at night and just doing the first thing that came into my head, whatever I wanted, I could use my magic freely for the first time and it was wonderful...But even that became lonesome after a while. I grew up surrounded by people, I wasn't suited to be alone."

I couldn't help the feeling of pity for her, that made me want to reach out and comfort her. But I held back, kept myself tightly coiled and under control. I wasn't going to help, I wouldn't make this easy for her.

"I grew up thinking that there was someone, some perfect person that I had yet to meet, that would complete me, and I searched for them in the stupidest of places, instead of going out and finding them, I assumed they would come to me. And then I decided to take matters into my own hands."

"And you chose me?" I felt like a pawn.

"I'd never known you, only watched you as you grew up. I guess because you're the opposite of Harry. And I built up this silly, idealistic, naive picture of you in my mind, where you were perfect and you loved me, and one day you'd walk up to me and tell me so." She laughed a little at herself, and I wondered how so many thoughts could go on in one persons mind.

"But I didn't." Of course I didn't. I'd never looked at the littlest Weasley twice, and for some reason I felt as though I'd betrayed her in that. I'd never looked at her until she threw herself at me. "And still you chose me?"

"Yes," she was certain on this, I could hear it in her voice. "Because there was no way you could have known me. Because I was living a dream in my mind. So I decided to do something about it, to make it come true. And you know the rest."

I nodded to myself, taking in her words.

"If you had chosen me, and you thought so much of me, why did you walk away?" I didn't need to refer more specifically than that, we both knew what I was talking about. "Because I wasn't perfect after all?"

"No, because you were."

I blinked and looked at her, but she was studying the floor, a blush spreading on her cheeks.

She cleared her throat and continued.

"We spent so much time together in those first few weeks, the honeymoon period," she smiled to herself, as though at a private joke. "And it was all perfect. Every bit. But it wasn't good for me, I zoned out of everything completely, not paying any attention to other things besides the crazy, maybe because I was always looking for you in the corridor, or trying to explain one of our less stealthy expeditions, but I started seeing things less clearly, for a little while. When I realised what was going on, I tried to stop, to tone it down, be more normal, pay attention to things around me. And I realised that I didn't fit in anymore. Maybe I never had. I didn't know half the people around me, their faces were familiar, but I knew nothing about them. I hardly ever spoke to my brother, I was just so self involved." She pausing, scrutinising the wall in front of her, her mind somewhere else entirely. "And that's not how you should live life. That's not how I wanted to live mine."

I stayed silent, unsure of how to deal with this onslaught of knowledge.

"And then that day by the lake, the day of the picnic, the perfect, perfect day, I got my chance to reappear."

"With them."

"Yes, they were finally paying attention. And I owed it to them, at least to my brother to explain, to try and make it all work. I was sick of being invisible."

"So you get the first bit of attention from them and run back?"

"Yeah, pathetic, huh."

We stared at each other. Some of what she'd said made sense, some of it didn't. I still wasn't completely satisfied, and she seemed to sense it ignoring me and looking at the ceiling instead.

"So what now?" She asked tentatively. I said nothing. "Do you hate me?" I glanced at her, all of her features were tensed as though awaiting a blow.

"No, no I don't hate you," she visibly relaxed, the looked replaced by one of curiosity. "But I'm not exactly thrilled with you. Do you realise that your brother and his friends took it upon themselves to talk to me? Telling me I should speak to you?"

"No!" Her eyes went wide. "Unbelievable! I don't remember them mentioning it to me. Must have been after I saw you with Daphne.." she trailed off uncertainly.

"Ginny, there's nothing going on..with Daphne and I," I'm not sure why I said that. I hadn't forgiven her, the whole thing seemed a bit twisted at that point, although I should have realised from the outset that it would, but I didn't want her to get the wrong impression. There was a lot of problems between us, a lot of anger, a lot of wounds, and a lot of uncertainty. But I still liked, her, despite everything, I was still drawn to her and still enjoyed her presence.

"Oh, okay." She exhaled loudly, and I wondered if I had been cruel in trying to replace her with Daphne. Perhaps, but you could hardly blame a guy. And I was a Malfoy, eternally bad at accepting rejection. It was only to be expected.

"Can we leave now? I think there's a spider making a home in my hair," I asked.

Ginny gave me a small, hopeful smile. It maybe wasn't anything of merit, but it wasn't nothing.

"If you like," she said, murmuring a spell which flew past me and made the door glow momentarily. I didn't go to it directly, but stayed still for a few more seconds.

"Where does this leave us?" She asked softly. I took a deep breath. "Are we- I mean, you know how I feel-" I cut her off.

"I don't think I want that,"

"No, of course not, obviously,"

"I don't think I can forgive you that easily,"

"I wouldn't forgive me either. It doesn't matter, forget about it."

I walked towards the door and turned the handle, stepping out and blinking in the bright light outside.

"Hey Ginny," I called back, she glanced up to meet my eyes. "Have you ever slid down the banister on the great staircase?"

"No.." She sounded wary.

"I'll see you tomorrow then, about two, top of the great staircase."

I walked off, feeling lighter than I had in weeks.

* * *

So there we have it! Not, perhaps the ending we were all anticipating, but I think it fits. I just don't think that right now, a kiss and make up/out ending would have done the characters justice. Thanks SO MUCH to my fabulous beta, who beta's my stuff like a woman posessed, and perhaps she is. Also thanks to TinaMustDie, SwirlofSnow, SnowQueen and WhosRab. On another note, do you know I get loads of "blahdeblah has subscribed to your story" but hardly any actual reviews? But it's okay, so long as I know you're enjoying. Still, props to everyone who does review, I feel like I have a little rapport with you all!

I'll probably post another chapter, either the epilogue, or a link to the next story- until then!


	15. Chapter 15

Hey everyone! Here's the epilogue! We're finally finished, can you believe it? I'm so proud of myself for finishing a story of this length, it's the longest fanfiction I've ever written, do you know? Your reviews have really helped, lots of them came at critical times, when I really needed the motivation, and I'm glad I could finish this for you. Especially thanks to Tayler, my beta, who was brilliant. I've met a lot of cool people through this story, and for that I'm thankful :)

I'm fairly certain that they'll be a sequel, I don't think I'm quite ready to let go of my characters, and it's far from a sunset ending, but I'm going to wait until I've formed a coherent plan in my head. The next installement will probably be a little darker, and there's likely to be a plot. Hey, perhaps Ginny will get round to explaining to Draco about that whole deal with the CoS in first year. Has anyone been picking up on the fact she always pussy foots around it? If there's anything you think should come up in the sequel, I'm very open to suggestions, so drop me a line, I'd love to hear from you. Anyway, if you'd like me to post the first chapter here, let me know in a review, or put me on author alert, or if you want to leave the story here, don't :)

Please enjoy the epilogue, it's been a blast :)

Disclaimer: I own nothing but style.

It was, well, strange is the word I'd use. There were Gryffindors, and Slytherins..in the same room. Together. Well, not together but they were standing together! No one was punching anyone, no scowling, no snide remarks. Okay, perhaps there was some scowling, and many snide remarks, but no punching! No one even looked like they were about to throw a punch. It was crazy. Some of the Gryffindors were even talking to the Slytherins.

"Look at that!" I said to Pansy excitedly, prodding her a bit and causing her to spill a little of her drink on the black cocktail dress she was wearing. I say dress, that little material shouldn't really be classified as anything other than lingerie. Pansy sighed at the spilt liquid but obliged me by looking at the Gryffindor third year speaking with the Slytherin fourth year.

"See, spiking the punch equals results," said Pansy, I could hear the satisfaction in her voice. There was something you had to admire about Pansy. At the same time, it was faintly terrifying.

The party had been Ginny's idea. As were most things. Although, recently I supposed she had been doing whatever I wanted to do, which was a nice change. After discovering that she didn't like thumb wars, we'd instead forced Mrs Norris into a bonnet and dress, created a statue of a bat which turned into a statue of Snape at intervals, and given Crabbe and Goyle polyjuice potion that turned them into each other. Too bad they hadn't noticed.

We were on the roof, because we hadn't found a classroom big enough, and Ginny's thoughts were too haphazard for the room of requirements to meet her..requirements. So Ginny had suggested the roof. It seemed the obvious choice, seeing as the party was to celebrate the last night of insanity, before Professor Snape's rule banning all non-essential magic came into play tomorrow morning. I thought Ginny might be a bit upset about that, but she seemed happier than ever. Having the school acting pretty bonkers had been fun, but it would be good to get back to our secret midnight adventures. And if I'm honest, I don't think the rest of the school could take it, they were all exhausted and the return to normalcy would be welcomed by most.

We were on the roof of the Great Hall I supposed, surrounded by turrets and towers and mountains and stars. The air was cold, summer seeping into autumn with a chill on the breeze, but that hadn't stopped Pansy putting on next to nothing before stepping out. Levitating up, as that would be more accurate. Ginny was wearing a little more, for which I was grateful, a green, floaty thing of Luna's which she'd borrowed as the only dress she'd brought had been shrunk to put on Mrs Norris and then clawed to pieces. Presently, Ginny and Luna were dancing to a faint, dreamy tune playing out of the wireless, unperturbed by the fact that they were the only two doing so. I'd been coming around to Looney Lovegood, well, I'd liked her ever since Ginny introduced me to her, with shiny eyes and a wide smile, as her best friend. Anyone that Ginny liked was alright in my book. Well, not everyone. To prove this point, I shot a glare over to the golden trio who were standing in a huddle near the punch bowl. It hadn't been my idea to invite them and I was damned if I was going to be nice about it.

Not that we had been particularly selective with who was invited, it was more of a "There's a party on the roof friday night, you in?" deal. And it worked remarkably well if you ask me, everyone seemed to be having a good time, although how much of that was attributed to Pansy's spiking the punch was unmeasurable.

I was standing with Pansy, Blaise and Daphne, and overlooking the grounds. We'd set up a bubble barrier around the roof, to stop anyone getting over excited and falling out, and it also contained the noise we were making, as some student had bought fireworks, and other were just extremely loud. As we stood, making light banter and listening to the sound of music and laughter, Ginny rushed over to us, out of breath with shining eyes, pulling Luna behind her.

"Draco! Luna says she can get us some paint that flashes luminous pink and then luminous green! You get it from wrinkled frus- What was it Luna?" She asked her friend who looked at the air above my head vacantly.

"Winkled Fristparks, I'll ask my Dad to send some over," she said dreamily.

"Sounds good," I agreed, turning to Pansy, Blaise and Daphne. "We're thinking of flying up to the astronomy tower and hanging a banner between it and a north tower, saying "Voldemort can't speak french," I explained. Blaise whistled in appreciation.

"Isn't that a bit cavalier?" asked Daphne, wrinkling her nose.

"More importantly, is it true?" Asked Pansy with raised eyebrows, Pansy believed everyone should speak french and only barbarians disrespected it. "And she's not coming is she?" She gestured to Luna. "First Ginny, now this?"

"Mais naturallement," the blonde replied. Pansy's eyes widened.

"You speak french? And you're pureblood aren't you? I suppose you'll do," she took Luna's arm and wheeled her away, chatted excitedly in french while the Ravenclaw nodded vaguely. Blaise raised an eyebrow and Ginny giggled. I wondered if I should later laugh at Pansy's befriending a girl she'd spent years mocking, then decided against it. Firstly she'd plot revenge, and a ed off slytherette plotting revenge is never a good thing. And secondly it was nice if Pansy could get along with Ginny's friends. I knew that neither of them had completely accepted Ginny, it would take much longer for that to happen, but they were being polite in their own ways for my sake, and I was grateful. Even so, there was a part of me that felt my friends might only be humouring me, and assuming Ginny was a phase I would soon tire of. Well, time would show them otherwise.

"Well I'm in, and I'll see you later" said Daphne, finishing her drink and moving away, leaving Blaise, Ginny and I.

"So we're anti-dark lord now?" Queried Blaise. "Are you sure that's wise?"

"He's not even pure blood," said Ginny in a conspiratory manner. Blaise's jaw dropped comically.

"No way," he gasped. "The faker! I'm in, and what's more I'm telling everyone at this party that he's got dirty blood!" With that, Blaise stormed off into the crowd.

"You know, dirty blood isn't really polite," said Ginny, with a frown.

"Okay, one step at a time Gin," I said. She didn't say anything, but her expression remained stony.

"Lighten up!" I said, attempting to keep the conversation off the darker topic we were always on the edge of breeching. "This is your party after all, you should be having fun!" As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them, as her frown instantly melted into a grin which only spelled trouble for me. The kind of grin that signified that she was about to suggest a ridiculous idea that I would protest against before giving in when she pouted. Not that I was some sort of push over, but you know, she had a really persuasive pout.

"Let's dance." Yeah, there we have the ridiculous idea.

"Let's not." That was me protesting.

And now she was doing the pout. But I remained strong! I looked at her right ear, not her pouting mouth, her ear. Which actually had freckles on it, did the girl never wear a hat when she went outside in the summer? Surely her hair should cover her ears? It was a mystery.

"It's my party, I should be having fun, and dancing will be fun." It was infallible logic.

"But you were just dancing with Luna!" More protesting from me, but I was weakening. One dance couldn't hurt, right? There were lots of people dancing and the music had changed from slow sway music to an upbeat piece with saxaphones and drums. One of those songs where everyone does the same thing at the same time. As I was a Malfoy, and knew how to dance unlike some people coughpottercough who only learnt for the Yule Ball, it wasn't as daunting a prospect as it could have been.

"Well okay, if you don't want to.." she trailed off, her pout becoming more pronounced and her eyes downcast. Luckily for her, at that moment I spied her brother, potter and granger coming towards us. Suddenly seized with an urge to waltz, I grabbed Ginny's hand (small and warm) and pulled her into the crowd on the dance floor.

Apparently delighted by my sudden change of heart, Ginny beamed at me, all hints of pouting gone thank goodness, as we moved through the throngs of people, spinning and weaving between each other. Above our heads, coloured lanterns bobbed, held by charms which allowed them to levitate above us, throwing pink, green and gold glows around. It was very warm and sticky as a beehive, full of hormones and excitement and the sheer enjoyment of being young and alive. Tonight wasn't for talking about the problems, we wouldn't worry about Voldemort or our parents, or the fact that we were from different worlds. All that mattered was the here and now, that we were together right then, and happy.

To her credit, Ginny danced well, following my lead as I spun her across, between other couples before pulling her back to me. She squealed with delight when I twirled her around, and giggled when I dipped her so low her hair nearly brushed the floor. She was just so fun to be around, who knew anyone could view the world with such naive enthusiasm, be thrilled and surprised by so many mundane things. Despite my apparent smittenness, however, I hadn't completely and utterly forgiven Ginny. We were reconciled, definitely, and working our way to a relationship we were both comfortable with, but there remained a little uncertainty which I could see she could detect, in the wary looks she shot me from time to time, and the feather light touch of her hand on my back.

I was glad that this wasn't one of those dances where you switched partners, I was loath to let Ginny out of my sight, never mind pass her on to another man who was sure to become as enthralled as I was with her. These thoughts reminded me of Snape and his apparent crush on Lily Evans. I'd never heard much about Lily, only knew that she was Potter's mother and an intelligent witch, and I wondered what had happened between her and the potions master. She had been quite lovely, and there was something Ginnyish about her. Not very like her, Ginny was unique, but something in the way she held herself, and the way she'd moved had reminded me of the loopy but fascinating girl I held in my arms. Snape clearly hadn't been repulsive in school, my mother still had a thing for him, despite the fact his grooming had never been up to much, judging from the photos, so what had gone wrong? Perhaps I'd find out one day.

"Is that Daphne?" Ginny asked, pulled me out of my musings, and I was momentarily distracted by her breath on my neck, before turning to where she was pointing. A group of Gryffindor boys were standing around a girl who was indeed Daphne, I could tell by the silver halter neck dress she was wearing. Again, that's a loose use of a word "dress" as it hardly went below her waist, showing a large expanse of thigh that the boys were taking in appreciatively.  
But really? Gryffindors?

And as we watched, Daphne leaned towards a dark haired boy and whispered something to him that I'm going to take a while guess and say shouldn't have been said in the presence of ..well anyone who's head wasn't constantly stuck in the gutter. The boy blushed noticably and adjusted his glasses and-

"Is that POTTER?" I said, a little loudly as more than one couple turned to us in surprise and Ginny collapsed into giggles and had to lean against me. That part wasn't so bad. Luckily Potter didn't notice, although Daphne threw a wink in my direction.

"Merlin, what is the world coming to?" I muttered, as Ginny recovered herself and grinned at me.

"Do you know, I was terribly jealous of Daphne that morning I saw you with her," Ginny said earnestly, with arched brows and a serious expression. "I'd just made up my mind to try and talk to you, and you walk in with the prettiest girl in the school on your arm."

"Don't let Pansy hear you say that," I teased, but held her closer all the same. "They've been fighting for the title for as long as I've known them." I didn't say that I thought she was pretty, I didn't really, pretty was too plain a word for her. Like describing Dumbledore as "smart" or the Dark Lord as "mean." Beautiful didn't cut it either, beautiful made me think of the poster girls in playwizard which I did not read nor did I have a secret stash of it at the bottom of my sock drawer under my copy of The Princess Bride.

Once again, Ginny interrupted my musings.

"Oooh! Fireworks!" She said, looking skywards, where a handful of golden butterflies spiralled above our heads, before fizzling out into nothing, only to be replaced by a hundred silver pixies that threw fairy dust down which shimmered away before it reached us, although a few girls, Ginny included, put their hands up to try and reach it. Then a magnificent glittering sun rose out of nothing, before imploding into an impossibly bright star which split off into four and rained down to earth in different colours.

The crowd "oo"ed and "ahh"ed appreciatively, and I got lost in the myriad of colour and sound, listening to Ginny's little gasps and sighs and smiling when she jumped at a particularly loud bang, and occasionally glancing at the show reflected in her eyes. I was so absorbed that I didn't notice her fix her eyes on me, her expression hopeful, if a little wary.

"Are you happy?" She asked, the question hanging heavily in the air between us, before I answered and banished it.

"Insanely."


	16. Author's Note

Hi Everyone, this is just a little message to let you know that the sequel is up and running. Look for the link on my author's page. Title is " An Inner Logic."

I hope you'll all read it and enjoy it and then review it! Hurrah!


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